Need help getting traction in court adopting stepson

Here is the quick story. If you want more details I will be happy to provide them, but wanted to make this post short to keep people reading.... I have been married for 6 years and we have two children together. My wife has a son that is 10 that I would like to adopt and have him take my last name. The Biological father has not been around since my son was 1 y/o. I came into the picture when we was 2 y/o. He knows he has a bio-father out there, but knows me as Dad. He goes by my last name at school and sports, but it has been getting harder to keep it that way. We began the adoption process about 3 years ago. We wanted to do it ourselves since we did not have much money for legal assistance. Well, we should have saved up for it. Doing it ourselves has been a horrible experience! Three years ago we filed the paper work the court told us to file. We were later told it was wrong and that we needed new paper work. We filed that and was told it was wrong by a different department. We then filed more paperwork and was told it was correct and would get the process going. We were to have a hearing date and talk with a judge and have an interview and all that. But then later find out that we needed more paper work. We filed that. Then were told we needed the father's consent, even though he has not been seen from or heard from in 8+ years. After months of searching, we found him and he agreed to sign over rights. We were told he just needed to sign the consent form with a notary as a witness. We took care of all of this and it was done. More months go by and we're told the signature won't work since the father is outside of our county. He has to physically come into the court and sign the papers. I don't know if he will agree to this. At this point, we are trying to figure out how we can get the bio-father to come down to the court and sign the papers or if maybe we just need to hire an attorney. The court system here is just totally screwy and have given us the run around so many times our heads are spinning. So my question is - should we just go through a lawyer or legal assistance and get this over with? Will they be able to take care of this quickly? What can they do that we as parents can't? What is average fees for this? What do I look for in an attorney? By the way - we are in Stanislaus County, California. Any help is much appreciated!