Fish & Richardson Wins Appeal for Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS)

On August 8, 2011 Fish & Richardson won a $7.2 million appeal for Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS), one of the most impoverished school districts in the country serving over 80,000 students. The firm represented BCPS on a pro bono basis to challenge E-rate decisions that denied BCPS millions of dollars in funding for telecommunications services on the grounds that it used an illegal bidding process to award the contract. The denial (and attempts by the government to collect funds back from BCPS) put a financial strain on the school system given its limited public resources. Over the past 18 months, Fish aggressively pursued various appeals and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted the appeals in full vindication of BCPS. The FCC also found that the multi-tier bidding processes used by BCPS was permissible, which will likely pave the way for similarly situated schools throughout the United States to obtain much needed funding.

For more information on the E-rate process or appeals, please contact Donna Balaguer (202-626-7719 or [email protected]) or Ed Lavergne (202-626-6359 or [email protected]).