Advice on how to protect myself from having an attorney drag out a lawsuit.

An attorney would be foolish to commit him/herself to benchmark dates, as so many aspects of a litigation are out of the attorney's control--the judge and adversary, to name the most obvious two. Beyond that, I would be curious about your definition of "dragging out" litigation.

You are concerned about your own attorney dragging out the lawsuit? How much control do you think your attorney has over the timeline if you have an opposing side? Definitely less than 100%. If you do not have confidence in your own attorney, I strongly recommend you tell that attorney and if unsatisfied with his or her responses, get a new one immediately.

I agree with the other answers that an attorney has little control over the timeline of a case, especially if the attorney wants to place the client's best interests first. There is no way to know what obstacles will appear, so no reasonable attorney would agree to have benchmarks as to when items will be completed. I would like to also point out that attorneys don't set a scheduling order; the court does. We don't decide the date for discovery to be completed; the court does. We don't decide the trial date; the court does. We don't decide most of the litigation dates, and we can only have a vague idea of a timeline when a retainer is signed. For instance, I know that if I file suit in Superior Court in my county right now, my trial date will probably be about twelve months out. It might be as much as 18-20 months out depending on which judge the case gets assigned to, but it probably won't be less than twelve.