Son Is Trying For Custody (lawyerless) And Random Coparenting Instructor Tells Him Not To Call Prospective Gal Anymore

Thanks in advance for any opinions and advice.

My son has been separated from his wife since 2017. They have 2 children together, F15 and M10. The parenting time still in place is every other weekend for him because he works alternate weekends. However, since 2020 he has had them way more than that, overnights, several days, weekdays and even whole weeks during the summer, etc. In 2018 or 2019 she got together with another man and early 2020 had another baby with that man. There were incidents of DV that we are not privy to, and both kids despise and fear that man, and while he was out of the house for some time, he moved back in in 2023.

In the summer of 2023 the kids started spending more and more time with my son, and in July/August they just stayed with him for good. School started, and they kept going to the same school zone they lived in before, My son wanted to change them to his school zone, but she has all of their legal papers and custody, She says she'll get him the papers, but never does.

In September, my son retained a lawyer to do the divorce, custody, etc. The retainer was 5K, In February the only thing that the attorney had done was to send a letter to wife/mom asking her agreement to certain terms. She didn;t agree to anything because she doesen't want to lose the child support that he's still paying even though the kids live with him.

Son fired the attorney when he received an e-mail advising the retainer was running out of funds, and filed for custody without counsel. Wife didn't go to 1st hearing, Judge spoke to 15F and Son separately, and asked Son to contact a GAL and take a coparenting class. He has called the GAL at least 15 times and received only 1 call back saying that GAL didn't have anything from Judge. The woman that runs the coparenting class told Son to not keep calling, not go speak to the Court clerk and just wait for the next hearing because she knows how those things work and it "looks bad on him". I really don't see how that could be true, but now Son is scared to ruin things.

I am afraid the next hearing (May) will just be continued because there's no GAL.

We live in Newport News, VA

If you read all of this, thanks so much