It's not worth hiring a lawyer but as you suggested, small claims court may be an option IF you hired them in your personal capacity OR if your jurisdiction allows LLC owners to go to small claims and represent the LLC in court (many, most?

They do require that person to have no assets, so a house in her name could be problematic.

It’s like you bought the properties with a 30 year loan and are putting the rest in to a savings account.

At 6% I’ve only saved $360k, but you would have saved $720k, an extra $72k/yr.

It's great that you're focused on saving and educating yourself before diving into real estate.

I currently do not have enough funds to fund a down payment and am trying to find the most efficient way to save.

My plan is to take the next six months to try and learn as much as possible about multifamily real estate, while also saving up money to be able to start a career in brokerage.

As others noted, you are likely limited in what you can legally do anyways, so you won't be saving a ton, and depending on how you value your time, it will likely be cheaper to higher professionals to do it anyways.

This is so I know if I should keep the person I currently have.

An additional benefit of a detailed engineering-based Cost Segregation Study is that it can increase potential insurance premium savings as well as provide support for the property tax appeals process.