Regent University Student Defense Lawyer

Regent University students contact me about academic integrity referrals, student conduct charges under the university’s community standards, Title IX complaints, and academic dismissals — and, from the School of Law, about academic standing and professionalism matters that carry a bar-admission consequence from the outset. Regent is a private Christian university in Virginia Beach with a substantial graduate and professional footprint, including an ABA-accredited law school and programs in psychology and counseling that carry their own professional accreditation and their own fitness expectations. Those programs raise a question undergraduates rarely face: whether a campus finding will follow you into licensure.

How do student discipline and dismissal cases work at Regent University?

Regent is private, which changes the legal architecture. The Fourteenth Amendment does not supply the procedural floor it does at a public university. The governing instrument is the contract: the student handbook, the community standards documents, the catalog, and the program manuals — including the law school’s academic regulations and the psychology and counseling programs’ professional standards. A departure from them is a problem regardless of the underlying allegation, as developed on my breach of contract against universities page.

Federal law still reaches private institutions: Title IX, Section 504 and the ADA, and FERPA apply without regard to status. Where a decision rests on professional or academic evaluation, the university will argue from the deference courts extend under Board of Curators of the University of Missouri v. Horowitz, 435 U.S. 78 (1978), and Regents of the University of Michigan v. Ewing, 474 U.S. 214 (1985) — deference that protects judgment actually exercised, not published steps that were skipped.

Where do Regent University cases come from?

Regent’s large online and distance enrollment produces integrity referrals grounded in similarity reports, remote-proctoring flags, and AI-detection output — categories in which the evidence is software and the student’s own drafting record is the most useful counterweight. Community standards matters follow the handbook’s definitions, some of which reflect the institution’s religious character and have no counterpart at a secular school. The law school generates exam conduct, academic standing, and professionalism matters. The counseling and psychology programs generate practicum evaluations, remediation plans, and fitness-to-practice referrals — academic in form and licensure-relevant in substance.

Which process are you in, and why does that matter?

Integrity, community standards, Title IX, academic standing, and program-level fitness review are separate tracks with separate deadlines and appeal rights, and the professional schools maintain their own documents on top of the university’s. Establish which document governs before you respond: academic misconduct and honor code, student conduct, professionalism and fitness concerns, or law school dismissal and academic standing.

What should you do first?

Pull the current handbook and integrity policy from Regent’s own site, and if your matter is program-based, pull the program manual, remediation policy, and any professional standards it incorporates — those documents usually decide the case. Confirm the edition in force for your cohort. Calendar the deadline the day the notice arrives. Request your file and the underlying evidence rather than a summary. Preserve drafts, submission logs, proctoring records, supervision notes, and messages. Do not sit for an interview or submit a written narrative until you understand the evidence, because in fitness and professionalism matters a student’s own explanation regularly becomes the strongest evidence against them.

What can a student defense lawyer do here?

• Reading the governing policy against the charge or decision letter
• Helping you prepare your account, your documents, and your questions
• Testing whether Regent University 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 that school’s policy. Some tracks permit an advisor of choice who may be an attorney, some permit a non-participating advisor, and some permit none. Reading the current policy is the first step, and it determines what form the assistance takes.

Common questions about Regent University student cases

Regent is private and faith-based. Does that limit what I can argue?

It changes the argument rather than removing it. Constitutional due process does not apply, but the handbook and catalog are enforceable commitments, and federal statutes reach private institutions. The analysis is a close comparison of what the university published against what it did.

I am in a counseling or psychology program and received a remediation plan. Is that serious?

Treat it as serious. Remediation and fitness documentation follows students into supervised practice and licensure applications, and the language of the plan is worth attention now rather than after it is final. See professionalism and fitness concerns.

I am a Regent law student. What should I do first?

Read the law school’s own academic regulations and integrity process, not the university-wide summary, and assume the finding is disclosable. Bar character and fitness questionnaires ask about disciplinary outcomes from any school. A flat-fee Full Read + Game Plan is described on the fees and scope of services page.

Related Virginia pages: Liberty University, Old Dominion University, Norfolk State University, and Hampton University. The full list is on the Virginia 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 licensed in Florida, admitted to the federal district courts in Florida, Colorado, northern and southern Illinois, Nebraska, New Mexico, and western Wisconsin, and not licensed in Virginia; Virginia 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.