Legal Question in Employment Law in California

Having settled the case, you have no lawsuit to continue, much less any right to require an attorney to work for you for free. A signed settlement cancels all the causes of action you had in the lawsuit, forever, unless you have some express terms in the agreement that a breach of the settlement reinstates the lawsuit. Otherwise the settlement is like any other contract and if it is breached you must file a new lawsuit for breach of contract, or if it is a judicially supervised settlement you have to file a motion to enforce the contract.

Furthermore, once an attorney who has taken a case on contingency has obtained a settlement offer that is within the range of what you can reasonably expect to recover at trial, they have done their job and earned their fee. If you want to reject the offer and roll the dice hoping to win the lottery, you don't have the right to force the attorney to keep working without additional compensation unless he or she wants to roll the dice with you. If the other side completely breaches a settlement by not paying at all, the attorney will keep working on the case because they don't get paid until you do, but they have no obligation to take a new breach of contract case just because a payment is seven days later than promised and your only damages for breach of that contract are seven days interest on the money.