If you've found your way to this page, you're very likely in trouble at the University of Pennsylvania. A lot of trouble. You found yourself accused of some type of misconduct. UPenn investigated you and gave you an opportunity to defend yourself at a hearing, but you lost your case. Now you're facing a serious sanction, suspension maybe, or dismissal. You've used up most of your options, and you're not really sure what to do next.
We can help. The attorneys at the LLF Law Firm are dedicated to helping students get fair treatment. Our Student Defense Team has helped hundreds of students defend themselves from all kinds of charges. We know what you're up against. We also know the law as it applies to education, as well as how the judicial system at UPenn operates. Most importantly, we're on your side and ready to do what we can to protect your academic future.
It's true that you don't have as many options as you had when you were first charged by the Office of Student Conduct (OSC) with an offense. You can try appealing the outcome of your disciplinary hearing, and you can try negotiating directly with UPenn administrators. Neither path is easy, but you don't have to travel alone.
For more information, contact the LLF Law Firm at 888-535-3686 or fill out our online questionnaire and tell us a little about your case. Don't wait, though. The University of Pennsylvania gives you just ten days to file your appeal, and there's a lot of work to be done.
The Situation
Let's talk a little more about just where things are right now.
As we said, you've been through an extensive judicial process already. Maybe you didn't take that process seriously enough. You thought you could handle the case yourself, maybe keep your parents from finding out. Or perhaps you hired an attorney, but it wasn't the right attorney. You hired a local or family attorney, and they didn't have the background and experience to handle campus judicial procedures. It could even be that the OCR investigator or your Hearing Panel mistreated you in some way, but your attorney didn't know how to stop them.
You're likely either facing suspension—a disruption in your education—or outright dismissal—the end of your career at UPenn. Either is serious on its own, but keep in mind that these sanctions come with transcription notations describing the exact nature of your offense. That means you're not going to be able to transfer your way out of this problem. There's almost no chance that another school will admit you once you've been dismissed from UPenn.
In other words, it's in your best interest to keep fighting. As you know by now, though, you need the right help in this fight. You need someone who understands university disciplinary cases and who has experience defending students. You need someone from the LLF Law Firm.
The Appeals Process at the University of Pennsylvania
The most obvious option to try is filing an appeal. After all, UPenn gives you the right to do so. You might as well take advantage of that, right?
Unfortunately, while the university gives you the right to file an appeal, it does not promise to review your appeal. For that, you need "grounds" – some legitimate reason why your case deserves reconsideration. Your unhappiness with the hearing outcome is not grounds. Grounds at UPenn means
- A material or prejudicial procedural error occurred
- Investigators or the Hearing Panel made an error in applying university policy
- Some new evidence has come to light that has a direct bearing on the outcome of the case
In addition, you may accept responsibility for the offense but object to the sanction on the grounds it is too harsh.
That's it. Those are your only options for appealing your hearing outcome.
And the battle isn't over once you come up with a justification for your appeal. You face other challenges as well. For instance, UPenn allows you just ten days from the end of your original hearing to file your appeal. That's not a lot of time to assemble evidence and draft a document. You're also not going to get the same due process rights you had the first time around, either. You're no longer presumed "Not Responsible" (innocent). In fact, you've been found "Responsible" (guilty). You don't get a hearing. You can't call witnesses to testify. Your appeal will be decided by one individual, the Disciplinary Appellate Officer (DOA), and you can't even meet with them. Their decision is based entirely on the record of the hearing and your appeal itself.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't appeal. It does mean that your appeal has to be as strong as you can possibly make it. Essentially, it's all you have. You need convincing arguments and concrete evidence, and it all needs to be written in a compelling style.
The good news is that the attorneys at the LLF Law Firm understand the brief. We know you're under a deadline, and we know everything rests on the quality of this one written document. We have the background and experience to get you through the process. We work with colleges and universities every day. We know what decision-makers look for in appeals, and we know how to make you look your very best on paper.
One Final Option: Direct Negotiation
There is yet another option you can try should your appeal fail: direct negotiation with the University of Pennsylvania. It's not always easy, though, to convince a university to negotiate. They need a reason to take an interest in your specific case.
If you're working with an LLF Law Firm attorney, you have one advantage other students don't have. Our extensive background means we are connected to university administrators and to many schools' Office of General Counsel. The Office of General Counsel is basically an attorney or a firm that offers schools legal advice. Our relationships with these officers inform our approach to defense strategies and help us know which arguments are most likely to be effective in appeals.
Those relationships can also sometimes be used to convince schools like UPenn to negotiate a fair settlement above and beyond the university judicial system. Such negotiations could allow you to remain a student at the university, or they could result in the removal of disciplinary notations from your transcript.
Fight For Your Future
Here's the bottom line: we cannot guarantee that we'll win your case. No one can. At this point, you are in a difficult situation with limited options. Here's what we can promise you, though. No one gives you a better chance of winning than the LLF Law Firm's Student Defense Team.
Don't wait, though. Again, UPenn gives you just five days to file your appeal. Contact the LLF Law Firm today at 888-535-3686 or use our online form.
