In Montana, if a college student gets accused of violating the code of academic integrity by cheating on a test, forging school documents, or plagiarizing someone else's ideas, the academic misconduct hearing will determine if the accusation is true or not. Students who know they are innocent can rely on the misconduct hearing to absolve them of guilt. Unfortunately, this is not always what happens.
Utilizing your right to appeal from a hearing's terrible decision is essential for students who want to protect their professional future from a serious blemish on their academic record. Joseph D. Lento is an academic appeal advisor who can help guide them through the process.
Misconduct Hearings in Montana
Your right to appeal the outcome of a misconduct hearing is essential because those hearings are very unreliable ways of determining what actually happened. Colleges in Montana are more focused with packing the hearing panels with a diverse set of judges – calling on them from the faculty, administrative staff, and even the student body – in order to give the hearing the perception of fairness.
However, that perception of an unbiased panel comes at a severe price: None of the panel members are likely to be experienced at separating strong from weak evidence, noticing signs that evidence is unreliable, or ignoring purely emotional appeals that are ungrounded in fact. As a result, the panel of judges at an academic misconduct hearing – as unbiased as it may be – frequently makes mistakes in its judgment that warrant a second look on appeal.
Appealing the Outcome of an Academic Hearing
Utilizing your right to appeal a bad outcome at the academic misconduct hearing is essential. However, your right to appeal is not absolute and varies from college to college in Montana. Some schools require appeal petitions to show that certain things happened at the hearing that warrants an appeal. The conditions that warrant appeal can be very limited in some schools. Some require there to be outright indications of bias by the hearing panel, or there to be newly discovered evidence that could not have been found before the earlier hearing.
Satisfying these procedural hurdles in order to have your appeal heard at all can take the skills of an academic appeal advisor like Joseph D. Lento. An advisor can also ensure that the strength of your appeal does not suffer from squeezing your case into one of the appealable conditions that your college requires before it will even consider the appeal.
Joseph D. Lento Serves Montana as an Academic Appeal Advisor
Joseph D. Lento is a lawyer who can serve Montana students as their academic appeal advisor. If you go to school in Montana, have been accused of academic misconduct, and lost at the misconduct hearing, bringing attorney Lento in to help you appeal the outcome of your case can be the best investment you can make for your professional future. Contact him online or call Joseph D. Lento at (888) 535-3686 to get the legal guidance you need at this difficult time.
- Blackfeet Community College
- Carroll College
- Chief Dull Knife College
- Dawson Community College
- Flathead Valley Community College
- Fort Belknap College
- Fort Peck Community College
- Little Big Horn College
- Miles Community College
- Montana State University
- Montana State University Billings
- Montana State University Great Falls College of Technology
- Montana State University Northern
- Montana Tech of the University of Montana
- Montana Tech College of Technology
- Rocky Mountain College
- Salish Kootenai College
- Stone Child College
- The University of Montana
- The University of Montana Western
- University of Great Falls
- University of Montana Helena College of Technology
Regrettably, an academic misconduct finding of responsibility can derail an accused student's academic and professional goals and some students and parents do not recognize this concern until it may be too late. If a student is found responsible for academic misconduct charges, in addition to the short-term consequences such academic and disciplinary sanctions, there will be long-term consequences. Internships, graduate school opportunities, and employment opportunities can all be adversely impacted by a finding of responsibility.
For these reasons and more, it is critical to properly address such concerns as early as possible in the disciplinary process. There are times, however, that it necessary to appeal an adverse outcome, and Joseph D. Lento and the Lento Law Firm have unparalleled experience passionately fighting for the futures of his clients at universities and colleges in Montana and throughout the nation. He does not settle for the easiest outcome, and instead prioritizes his clients' needs and well-being. Joseph Lento is a licensed attorney in New Jersey and New York, is admitted as an attorney pro hac vice in state and federal court if needed when representing clients nationwide, and serves as an academic misconduct advisor to students facing disciplinary cases in Montana and throughout the nation. Make certain your or your student's interests are protected at all stages of the academic misconduct disciplinary process, including the appeal stage - Contact National Academic Misconduct Advisor Joseph D. Lento today at 888-535-3686.
