A recent New York Law Journal story, “Circuit Denies En Banc Review in Fee Award Fight,” reports that a civil rights attorney fighting a 95 percent reduction in his fee award failed to convince a federal appellate court to have its full bench review the matter.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit denied en banc review of rulings that resulted in a deep cut of the fees Ronald McGuire sought for representing students at the City University of New York.  McGuire requested more than $750,000 in fees.  He has been awarded $39,389.  He said he would seek review from the U.S. Supreme Court.

Members of the civil rights bar and others argued in amicus briefs that letting the fee award stand could chill attorneys' willingness to take civil rights cases.

For 13 years, McGuire litigated with CUNY, represented by the state Attorney General's Office, after a 1997 college newspaper endorsement and a nullified election.

Eastern District Judge Nina Gershon said the cancelled election breached the First Amendment rights of the student editors, yet she dismissed the suit against all parties and said the college president who cancelled the election was entitled to qualified immunity.

In 2007, Second Circuit Judge Guido Calabresi and John Walker Jr. revived Husain v. Springer, 97-cv-02982, and remanded it in a 2-1 decision.  In dissent, Judge Dennis Jacobs said the case was "about nothing".

The case resulted in the voluntary repeal of a CUNY student election rule and, according to McGuire, the establishment of important student First Amendment case law.

McGuire said the certiorari bid would "establish that principle and to make sure that the federal courthouse doors in the Second Circuit are not slammed shut in the faces of CUNY students when their constitutional rights are violated."