Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Your attorneys would file a motion for attorney fees within the short legal time limit after the judgment along with a memorandum of costs, and they should then refund what you paid. Write them and remind them of this. Check the court docket.

No. The attorneys are entitled to collect their entire fee (and costs) from you in accordance with your contract. The other party owes money to you, not to your lawyers.

You need to speak to the attorneys who represented you to find out what the agreement with them is and whether they help you collect the judgment or not[ usually the attorneys treat collections as separate from the litigation]. An award of attorney fees is for all the attorney fees reasonably incurred, both amounts already paid and to be paid to the time of the award [if a 'reasonable attorney fee" is greater than what your attorney actually charged you, you can collect the larger sum]. they may be willing to defer some of their bills until you collect if they think you can actually collect from the other side, but many plaintiffs have no real assets so a judgment often is of little value.

Although I agree generally with the responses you have received, this should have been posted in General Civil Litigation, and not Criminal Law.