Loyola Marymount University Student Defense Lawyer

LMU students contact me about academic integrity referrals, student conduct charges, Title IX notices, and academic standing decisions — and, separately, law students at LMU Loyola Law School about honor and standing matters with bar consequences attached. The two sides of the university sit in different parts of Los Angeles and run different processes, and confusing them costs time a student usually does not have.

Overview

Loyola Marymount University is a private university in the Jesuit and Marymount traditions, formed by the 1973 merger of Loyola University and Marymount College, on a bluff campus in the Westchester neighborhood on the Westside of Los Angeles. It is the parent institution of LMU Loyola Law School, located in downtown Los Angeles, and its film and television programs are among its most prominent divisions.

Private status means there is no constitutional due process claim; the relationship is contractual. The student handbook, the academic honesty policy, the catalog, and the school-level rules are the promise, and the case is whether the university kept it and followed its own published procedures. See breach of contract against universities. Where a decision is academic rather than disciplinary, courts defer under Board of Curators of the University of Missouri v. Horowitz, 435 U.S. 78 (1978), which is why the effective argument is procedural.

Where LMU cases come from

Integrity referrals across coursework, many built on AI-detection or similarity reports, covered at academic misconduct and honor code. Conduct matters from residential life and student organizations, covered at student conduct and code-of-conduct defense. Title IX complaints. And a category particular to a major film school: collaborative production work generates disputes over authorship, credit, use of others’ footage, and who was responsible for what on a crew — which arrive dressed as integrity or conduct charges and have to be untangled before they are answered.

Which process you are in matters

Integrity, conduct, Title IX, and academic standing are separate tracks, each with its own deadline, decision-maker, and advisor rules, and the law school administers its own system independently of the Westchester campus. Identify your track and the document that governs it before any response or interview.

What to do first

Pull the current academic honesty policy, student conduct code, or law school standards from LMU’s own site rather than relying on any summary, including this one, and confirm the version for your cohort. Read the syllabus and any assignment or production guidelines alongside it, since permission granted there can answer an allegation outright. Calendar the deadline, request your file, and preserve drafts, project files, call sheets, and messages before they are gone.

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 LMU 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 do inside your case depends on the policy that governs it.

Common questions

LMU is private. Do I have any rights at all?

Yes: the rights the university wrote down. Handbook procedures, published standards, deadlines, and appeal routes are enforceable as the terms of the relationship, and holding a school to its own document is the core of most successful responses.

My case is about a group production, not my own work. How is that handled?

By separating the allegation from the collaboration. Written permissions, crew assignments, and the instructor’s own guidelines usually decide these, and they need to be assembled before you give an account rather than after.

I am at Loyola Law School. Is that different?

Substantially. The law school runs its own process, and every outcome is eventually read by character and fitness examiners, which makes the wording of a resolution as important as the outcome. See law school dismissal and academic standing.

Nearby California schools: USC, UCLA, and Pepperdine University. The full list is on the California 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 California; California 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.