Landmark College Student Defense Lawyer
Landmark College in Putney exists for one purpose: it enrolls, exclusively, students who learn differently — students with dyslexia and other learning disabilities, ADHD, autism, and executive function challenges — and builds its associate and bachelor’s programs around that mission. That mission shapes its legal disputes in a way I see nowhere else. When a conduct charge, an integrity referral, or a dismissal decision lands at Landmark, the question of how the student’s disability was handled is rarely a side issue. It is usually the issue.
Overview
Landmark is a private college, which sets the baseline theory: no constitutional due process claim, a contractual relationship instead. The student handbook, the catalog, and the published procedures are the promise, and the first question is whether the college kept it — the framework on my breach of contract against universities page. But at Landmark the federal layer carries unusual weight. Section 504 and the ADA apply, and a college whose entire published identity is expertise in students who learn differently invites its own standard: its promises about support, structure, and understanding are part of the bargain students paid for. When discipline or dismissal arrives in a form that ignores the very profile the college exists to serve, the contract argument and the Section 504 and ADA argument run together.
Where Landmark cases come from
The patterns are distinctive. Conduct charges where the alleged behavior is entangled with the student’s disability — an executive-function crisis read as defiance, an autistic student’s communication style read as hostility. Academic integrity referrals where the assistance a student used sits close to the support strategies the college itself teaches, and where AI-detection or similarity software flags work without context. Progression and dismissal decisions where attendance, deadlines, or completion rates are the stated ground and the underlying story is a support plan that stopped working. And withdrawal decisions made under pressure, where a family is told leaving quietly is best — advice that deserves scrutiny before it is taken, not after. The conduct framework generally is covered on my student conduct defense page and dismissals on the academic dismissal and suspension page.
Which process you are in matters
A conduct charge, an integrity referral, an academic-standing decision, and an accommodation dispute are different tracks with different procedures and different decision-makers, and at Landmark they cross-contaminate more than anywhere else, because disability evidence is relevant in all of them. The sequencing matters: a student who accepts a conduct finding without raising the accommodation failure has usually surrendered the strongest ground. Before responding to anything, map which processes are open, what each one can take away, and where the disability evidence belongs in each.
What to do first
Pull the current student handbook and the relevant academic policies from Landmark’s own site rather than relying on any summary, including this one. Gather the disability-side file at the same time: the accommodation plan, advising and coaching notes, and every email about support, because that file is usually where the case is won.
Then calendar the deadline in writing, request the college’s file, and preserve drafts, version histories, and messages. Do not sit for a meeting or give a statement until you understand what the college claims to have. Parents are often deeply involved at Landmark, and their instinct to call and talk it through is understandable — but undocumented phone calls resolve nothing and sometimes create the statement problem the written process then has to fix.
What I can help with
- Reading the governing policy against the charge or decision letter
- Helping you prepare your account, your documents, and your questions
- Testing whether Landmark followed its own published procedures
- Scrutinizing software-based evidence, including AI-detection and similarity reports
- Assisting with 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 Landmark’s policy for your track. Where outside participation is limited, the assistance shifts to the file and the written submissions — and in cases where disability documentation carries the argument, that is where the case is decided anyway.
Common questions
Can Landmark discipline behavior that comes from my disability?
Colleges may enforce legitimate conduct standards, but the analysis does not end there. The questions that matter are whether the rule was applied as written and as applied to others, whether required accommodations were actually in place when the incident happened, and whether the college engaged the process its own policies promise before reaching for sanctions. At a college built around learning differences, those questions have unusual force.
Does my accommodation plan apply during a disciplinary process?
Disciplinary proceedings are part of the college’s program, and access obligations do not pause at the hearing-room door. Extended time to review materials, communication supports, and format adjustments are all fair requests, made in writing, before the meeting rather than after it goes badly.
The college suggested a quiet withdrawal. Should I take it?
Not before understanding what it costs. A withdrawal can carry a transcript notation, a readmission condition, and a disclosure obligation at the next school, and it usually extinguishes the appeal you did not file. Sometimes a negotiated exit is right — but negotiated, with the notation and the re-entry terms in writing. A flat-fee record review, described on my fees and scope of services page, is the fastest way to price the decision.
Other Vermont schools where I handle these matters include the University of Vermont, Middlebury College, and Vermont State University. The full list is on the Vermont student defense page, and the reasons to start early are set out in Do Not Underestimate Your School.
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 Vermont; Vermont 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.