Should You Work with an Academic Misconduct Attorney If You Have Been Accused of Cheating in School?

If you have been accused of cheating on a term paper or exam at a college or university, you could face significant consequences when found responsible for violating the policy. You could be reprimanded or expelled from school and even denied to attend professional programs. You could be required to attend a hearing before a panel that will decide your fate. You must review your Student Handbook to determine what to expect and review the charges you are facing. Also, you must hire an academic misconduct attorney early on to help you prepare for the process. Your lawyer can help you obtain evidence in these hearings available in school networks and computers. In addition, because courts do not always overturn school decisions on academic concerns, you must try to prevail on campus. An experienced attorney will provide you with the best chance. 

Different Forms of Cheating

Plagiarism is a common form of cheating. It includes incorporating other people’s words or ideas into your own coursework without giving credit. Another form of cheating is sharing answers with fellow students. A lot of colleges use online platforms such as Zoom for learning, which increases the chances of students violating academic policies. 

Types of Evidence You Need for a Cheating Hearing

The educational institution may review the college network internet searches or use a college-controlled student resourced to collect evidence. Also, they will seek access to the accused’s devices such as their smartphone, computer, or tablet to analyze the time and date they accessed the internet from a non-campus network and what they searched for. The school will also look at the student’s emails to prove that they were caught cheating on an exam. 

A great academic misconduct attorney can help the accused student find favorable information and determine the lack of negative information from certain sources. The majority of schools must provide the accused with the right to see the evidence they will depend on. A lawyer will scan and review the records as well as smartphone data. They can find evidence to show that you were not online at certain times or did not click on the work you allegedly plagiarized. 

An academic misconduct attorney has the knowledge and resources to order device searches to find supporting evidence and help you make your best case to college or university officers who make up the hearing board. For instance, they can build a defense to demonstrate that while you did research on several sources, you didn’t plagiarize from them.