Here's the situation: Yale charged you with a serious disciplinary misconduct offense. The university investigated you. You were given a hearing before the Yale Executive Committee, but you lost that hearing. Once it found you Responsible for (guilty of) an offense, the Committee assigned sanctions. If you're here, those sanctions were probably severe, most likely either suspension or dismissal.
What do you do now?
You don't simply give up. There's no question that your back is against the wall. You're no longer a “Respondent,” an “accused” student with the right to a presumption of innocence. You've been found Responsible. Your job is to convince the university that it made a mistake. That's always going to be an uphill battle, but it's not impossible. You can appeal to the Committee of Review. You can try negotiating directly with the university.
We can help. The Lento Law Firm was created to help students get fair treatment from their schools. Our Student Defense Team spends all day every day working to defend students' rights. We've helped hundreds of students, and along the way, we've learned a thing or two about how university systems like Yale's operate. No one else has the knowledge of education law that we have. No one else has the background and experience we have. If you're going to take on this fight, you need our help.
You cannot wait, though. Yale gives you just five days to file an appeal. What that means is that you must call us immediately at 888-535-3686. Or, take the time right now to fill out our online questionnaire and tell us about your case.
Your Options at This Point
How did you get here, exactly? Maybe you thought you could handle your case on your own. You didn't realize just how seriously Yale treats misconduct, how complicated the process of defending yourself would be, and what kinds of serious sanctions the university might propose. Or, perhaps you did hire an attorney, but you hired a local or family attorney, someone without a grasp of how campus judicial systems work. There's also the possibility that the Executive Committee treated you unfairly. It happens. Investigators bend the rules sometimes; decision-makers allow their personal biases to influence their decisions.
Whatever your situation, your options are limited now.
- You can appeal your case.
- You can try negotiating directly with Yale.
Despite these limited options, though, you have to keep fighting. Here's why. Suspension and expulsion are serious penalties in and of themselves. However, they both come with transcript notations about the nature of your offense. That can make it difficult, if not impossible, to find another school willing to accept you. For all practical purposes, your academic career could be over, and you know what it's like for anyone on the job market without a college degree.
So, you fight. Here's how.
The Appeals Process at Yale
You start by filing an appeal because Yale guarantees you the right to appeal as part of your due process protections.
It's important you recognize, though, that this right is not absolute. For example, you can't simply appeal your hearing outcome because you don't like that outcome. You must have specific "grounds" for appeal. Yale puts it this way:
You must "believe that a decision of the Executive Committee, in matters of fact or the assignment of penalties, is inconsistent with precedent or is otherwise in error."
In practice, this generally means that one of three things has occurred in relation to your case:
- New evidence has been uncovered that could have some bearing on the outcome of the case
- Some procedural error has been committed that influenced the outcome of the case
- The Committee has assigned you a sanction that was clearly disproportionate to the nature of your offense
Finding the right grounds for your appeal is an important first step, but there's a good deal more involved in mounting a successful appeal to a hearing outcome. This time, your case will be presented to the Committee of Review. You aren't allowed to address this Committee as you did before. You'll get no chance to make opening and closing statements, no chance to introduce evidence, and no chance to call witnesses to testify. The Committee of Review's decision is based solely on the record of the original hearing and the content of your written appeal.
What this means is that your written document must be as strong as you can possibly make it. It must put forward a convincing argument, it must provide conclusive evidence, and it must be written in a compelling style. And, of course, you must get it all done within five days of receiving the original hearing outcome.
Here's the good news: The Lento Law Firm understands the situation. We know the stakes, we know the requirements, and we know what kind of pressure you're under. We've also worked with hundreds of students, defending them from all types of charges, so we're well-versed in what review committees look for in these kinds of documents. You can count on us to draft a solid appeal, one that puts forward the best possible argument and that puts you in the best possible light. No firm gives you as good a chance of success in your appeal as the Lento Law Firm.
One Final Option: Direct Negotiation
Should you lose your appeal, you do have one final option: you can try to negotiate directly with the Yale administration. This isn't option one because it can be difficult to convince a university to engage with a student outside normal processes and procedures. In making your argument, though, you have one advantage other students don't: the Lento Law Firm has relationships with many schools' Office of General Counsel.
The "Office of General Counsel" refers to an attorney or a firm that a college or university has retained for the purposes of legal advice. When the school is facing a legal problem, the Office of General Counsel steps in to describe the school's legal options for responding to that problem.
Our relationships with these officers provide us with unique insight into how defenses and appeals should be structured and what makes for the strongest arguments and evidence. In addition, though, it is sometimes possible to use these connections to initiate a dialogue with a school's administration. Negotiation can occasionally result in reinstatement to the university or the removal of sanction notations from transcripts.
Fight For Your Future
We cannot guarantee you 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. You won't be any worse off for having fought. And no one gives you a better chance of winning than the Lento Law Firm's Student Defense Team.
Don't wait, though. Again, Yale gives you just five days to file your appeal. Contact the Lento Law Firm today at 888-535-3686 or use our online form.
