University of Texas at Austin Student Defense Lawyer
Most UT Austin students who call a lawyer are holding one of three letters: an academic integrity referral, a conduct charge from Student Conduct and Academic Integrity in the Office of the Dean of Students, or a notice from a college or professional school that academic standing or professionalism is in question. Each one starts a clock, and each one is decided under a written policy that most students have never read.
Overview
UT Austin is the flagship of the University of Texas System and a public institution, which matters legally. Under Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565 (1975), a disciplinary suspension at a public university requires notice and an opportunity to respond, and longer separations require more. The university is bound by the Constitution and by its own published rules — the University Code of Conduct and the institutional rules that Student Conduct and Academic Integrity administers. Whether it followed both is the first question I ask in every file. The public-institution framework is described at due process at public institutions.
Where UT Austin cases come from
The volume comes from large lecture and online courses, where similarity software and AI-detection tools generate integrity referrals in batches; those cases are covered on the academic misconduct and honor code page. Group projects with ambiguous collaboration rules are a close second. Greek life and residence-hall incidents feed the conduct side, sometimes alongside organization discipline. Then there are the professional schools: the University of Texas School of Law, where a finding follows the student into bar character and fitness, and Dell Medical School, where professionalism review runs on top of the university-wide system and reaches residency applications later. Title IX matters run on their own track entirely.
Which process you are in matters
An integrity referral, a conduct charge, an academic-standing decision, a Title IX complaint, and a professionalism concern are five different processes with different deadlines, different decision-makers, and different levels of deference. The label controls. Under Board of Curators of the University of Missouri v. Horowitz, 435 U.S. 78 (1978), academic judgments receive far more deference from courts than disciplinary findings, so a decision that is disciplinary in substance but wears an academic label is worth contesting on that basis alone. Identify your track before you write anything: student conduct, Title IX, academic dismissal or suspension, or professionalism.
What to do first
Pull the current conduct and integrity policies from UT Austin’s own site rather than relying on any summary, including this one. Policies and office names change, and the version in effect for your matter is the one that governs. Then write the deadline down, request your file, and preserve your drafting history, messages, and notes before they disappear. Do not sit for an interview until you understand what the university claims to have; a separate charge for dishonesty during the process is often easier to prove than the original allegation.
What I can help with
- Reading the governing policy against the charge or decision letter
- Preparing your account, your documents, and your questions
- Testing whether UT Austin followed its own published procedures
- Scrutinizing software-based evidence, including AI-detection and similarity reports
- The written response and appeal, to the extent the policy permits
- Serving as your advisor where the process allows it
- Negotiating sanction terms, notations, and disclosure language
What a lawyer may actually do in your case depends on UT Austin’s policy for that process. Some tracks permit a participating advisor, some permit a silent one, and some permit none — in which case the work shifts to the file and the written submission.
Common questions
Will an integrity or conduct finding show up on my transcript?
It depends on the sanction and the notation policy in effect. Separately, graduate, transfer, and licensing applications often ask about findings whether or not anything appears on the transcript, so the disclosure question is broader than the transcript question. Negotiating the wording is frequently the most valuable work in the case.
Can a lawyer attend my UT Austin hearing?
It depends on the track and the current policy. Where counsel cannot speak, preparation still can: the account, the documents, the questions, and the appeal are all built outside the hearing room.
I am at Texas Law or Dell Med. Is my situation different?
Substantially. Law findings surface in bar character and fitness review, and medical professionalism findings reach the MSPE and residency applications. See law school dismissal and academic standing and medical school dismissal and remediation.
Nearby Texas schools: Texas State University, Texas A&M University, and Baylor University. The full list is on the Texas student defense index.
This is general information about the matters I handle and the law that applies to them. It is not legal advice about your situation, and the law in this area can change. For advice on your matter, start with the Full Read + Game Plan — your entire file read, straight answers, and exactly what to do next, in what order.
This page is informational and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the institution named on it.
Attorney advertising. Zachary Gaynor is admitted in Florida and its federal courts, not in Texas; Texas matters are handled through the framework described on the nationwide practice page — federal-law assessment, campus-process support where the school’s policy permits an advisor, and association with local counsel or pro hac vice admission where required.