Representation & Advocacy — From $5,000

Direct representation, most of the time: I deal with your school — and, where it has escalated, with its counsel — directly. Me reaching out to your school in any manner is a minimum of $5,000, because speaking for you requires being fully prepared. You do not need a Game Plan session first. When time is short — a response due, a meeting already on the calendar — representation is the right first step: it begins as soon as conflicts clear and the agreement is signed, there is no session to schedule, and work typically begins the same week you sign. When budget leads and the calendar allows, the Full Read + Game Plan maps the ground first. Where it does, this covers the arc of the matter: policy analysis, submissions and appeals, hearing preparation and attendance where permitted, records work, and agency complaints and negotiation outside the school. It is priced to what is actually left in the process, and the $1,000 Game Plan fee is credited toward it if you sign within two months of the Session. Most representation engagements land between $5,000 and $15,000, fixed in writing before any work begins; a matter with an unusual record or several proceedings running at once is quoted above that range, and you will know your exact number first. This is scoped representation for the matter in front of us rather than an open-ended, everything-forever retainer, which is why I do not call it “full scope.”

These are ranges, not a menu price — a lot is variable. The stage you are in, the school, the size of the record, how many issues are in play, whether the school opens a second proceeding, and how fast the calendar is moving all move the number. That is why “from” is doing real work in these figures, and why the quote comes after I understand the matter, not before — fixed in writing, before any work begins, so the variability is mine to manage, not yours. Representation can also be combined with any other engagement on the fees page — the written agreement sets out how the fees work together.

The stage you are in sets both the work and the number. A student answering a charge next week, a student appealing a decision that already landed, and a student staring at a hearing date need different things:

• Nothing has been decided yet — a charge, an investigation, a meeting on the calendar. This is where representation buys the most: advising you before you answer anything, controlling what enters the record, and dealing with the school while every option is still open. From $5,000.
• A decision has come down and the appeal window is open. The record is largely set and the work is precision on paper — the appeal built to what the policy actually lets the reviewer consider. A stand-alone appeal letter starts at $1,500 (details below); carrying the whole appeal stage — strategy, the submission, and the exchanges around it — runs from $5,000.
• A hearing is scheduled. The most demanding posture on this page, priced in its own section below — from $10,000.
• The internal process is over. “Final” is the school’s label for the end of its process, not the end of the matter: negotiation with the school and its counsel, agency complaints, record corrections, readmission paths, and settlement all still happen after “final” — more often than students expect. Where court is the right tool, that is the litigation conversation — and mind the clock: after a final decision, the deadline to go to court can be as short as thirty days.

What this actually looks like day to day is calling the school and dealing with the people who decide, advising you before you answer anything, and sending the emails that put a problem in writing while there is still time to fix it. That is the work that moves matters — more reliably than any single document does.

Speaking directly with the school’s counsel — rather than with a dean or a committee — raises the figure. It means the institution has escalated, the stakes are legal, and every communication has to be built for a later record.

Written items within the engagement

Demand or pre-suit letter — from $2,000. Offered, and priced honestly. The letter is only as good as the record and the analysis behind it, so the file has to be read and the theory built before a word of it is written — a real time investment, which is what the figure reflects. It is also the item I recommend least often. A demand letter rarely changes an outcome on its own, and a poorly built one does affirmative damage: it shows the school and its counsel exactly what you have, hardens a position you were hoping to move, and commits your theory to writing before the record supports it. When a letter is the right tool, I will say so and write it. More often the same effort spent on calls, submissions, and documented email accomplishes more.

Appeal letters and comparable written submissions — from $1,500. Where it lands depends on the school, on what its own policies require an appeal to contain and allow it to consider, and on the time the record and the deadline actually demand. A one-page grievance form on a two-week clock is not a multi-exhibit appeal to a professional program’s dean, and it is not priced as one.

Hearings — Title IX, conduct & due process — from $10,000

A contested hearing is the most demanding posture there is, and one of the most consequential. The notice and evidence file have to be mastered, testimony and cross-examination prepared, exhibits sequenced, the advisor role used to its full limit, and the record built for appeal — all at once, and all correctly the first time, because there is rarely a second one. The hearing-type proceedings I handle:

• Title IX & sexual-misconduct hearings — live hearings with cross-examination through an advisor, run under the school’s Title IX procedures.
• Code-of-conduct & disciplinary hearings — alcohol, drugs, hazing, and the rest of the conduct code, where the school must prove its charge under its own rules.
• Academic, honor-code & professionalism hearings — misconduct panels, fitness-to-practice committees, and the other hearing-type proceedings professional programs run.

What makes these matters hard is that students usually do not know what rights they actually have going in — what the school must prove, what notice it owed, what the advisor is permitted to do, what has to be preserved for a court to review it later. That is precisely the work. Because of the preparation involved, hearing representation is priced separately, from $10,000, quoted to the case — most contested hearings run between $10,000 and $25,000, and a fee at this level can be split into installments fixed in writing at the start: no interest, no surcharge, no financing company. In the large majority of these matters a parent is the one funding the representation as a third-party payor, which is common and permitted — the student remains the client, and we agree up front on what the family will and will not be told.

Ready to start? See all fees at a glance — or begin with the Full Read + Game Plan, which is how most representation engagements begin.

Last reviewed September 2026, and reviewed at least annually. These figures are current and are honored as stated for at least ninety days from the date they are published here. Where a figure reads “from,” the final number is fixed in writing before any work begins, never after. Third-party costs — records and transcript fees, filing and service fees, postage, and evaluations or documentation from your own clinicians — are separate.

Attorney advertising. This page is general information only — not legal advice and not an offer of representation. The fees shown are my typical fees for the scopes described and may differ on your matter; your scope and fee are set in a signed written agreement. Contacting me does not create an attorney–client relationship. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Zachary Gaynor, Esq., Fla. Bar No. 125534, Boca Raton, Florida.