Being charged with violating the student code of conduct for cheating, plagiarism or other prohibited conduct, probably is the most serious thing that can happen to you as a student.

Such charges, unless successfully defended, will haunt you for the rest of your life.

You cannot hide the fact that you were disciplined because sanctions for charges that aren't dismissed are recorded on your transcript. You will be asked whether you were ever disciplined for misconduct at an academic institution when you apply for a job or when you apply for admission to college, graduate school, law school, business school or medical school.

I cannot overemphasize the importance of adhering to the following steps when you are informed that you have been charged with violating your school's code of student conduct.

•· Do not meet with school officials offering an informal resolution of the charges unless you are represented by an attorney. Anything you say during such meetings can and will be used against you in subsequent formal proceedings. When I go with clients to such meetings, the client says nothing, because anything I say cannot be used later to incriminate the student. Sometimes school officials, realizing they won't be able to browbeat a student into confessing when the student shows up for informal resolution represented by an attorney, will retract the charges knowing they won't stand up in formal proceedings.

•· Do not attempt to defend yourself at the hearing to decide if you are guilty of the charges. You must be given a hearing if you demand one. At the hearing, the school will be represented by someone who has years of experience prosecuting students on charges such as cheating, plagiarism and other violations of the code of student conduct. You presumably have no experience in defending yourself against such charges. Plus you're scared, realizing your future is on the line. Which side do you think will present its case effectively?

You need a lawyer to put on a vigorous defense.

Some schools allow an attorney to represent you at the hearing. Other schools only allow an attorney to advise you during the hearing. I have helped students in both situations defend themselves against bogus charges of misconduct.

When students can only be advised by an attorney, I draft, with input from you, your opening statement, your testimony, your questions for witnesses who will testify on your behalf, and your closing argument. I also prepare you to be cross-examined, and I draft the questions for you to ask during cross-examination of the witnesses against you. During the hearing, I modify everything I have prepared for you in response to what actually happens during the hearing, which is pretty much never what we expect to have happen during the hearing, and present it for you in real-time to use when you make your case.

When students can be represented by a lawyer, I prepare everything discussed in the previous paragraph, but I make the opening statement, question witnesses including you, cross-exam adverse witnesses, and make the closing argument. You appear and testify as a witness on your own behalf.

Either way, I allow you to put on a strong defense to maximize your chances of not having a violation of the code of student conduct end up on your transcript, where it will remain for the rest of your life.

I can provide arguably the best defense available for you based on my experience doing so for other students, and the thirty years I spent as a professor at the University of California, where often I was on the other side of the hearing table from a student I had turned in to Student Judicial Services for academic dishonesty in one of my classes.

Contact me to discuss how I can help you. I offer free initial consultations.

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