if your wife is US citizen then you dont need to be in status while filing the AOS(Adjustment of Status)

but if you are filing based on your spouse employer processing or based on green card only, I am pretty sure(not 100 %) you need to be in status.

also you may try reinstating but that has to be approved before you start your initial process for green card. You cannot file for reinstate and file green card at the same time because of immigration intent conflict in which case they will deny your reinstatement and might delay or cause problem in you green card processing.

also one thing i would like to suggest is to not worry about saving couple of hundred dollars in immigration matters. its not worth the hassle. might cost you 1000 or 1500 more but it is definetely not worth taking risk. again get a better lawyer(more expensive) rather than cheap ones who dont know much and might end up screwing your case.

i hope this helps and good luck.