Legal Memo on Kelvin Klineberg's Violation of Academic Integrity Policy

This assignment ties together everything we have done in this course. You must prepare a formal memorandum of fact and law (as per Chapter 15 of the text, in proper format with headings including the title MEMORANDUM OF FACT AND LAW) based on the following fact situation and your research. You must be thorough and accurate. Your conclusion must flow from legal principles and your research. You must provide sound legal advice.
 
Fact situation: 

Assume that I am your supervising lawyer.  Kelvin Klineberg has retained our firm to represent him in a “good character” hearing. The hearing will take place in June of 2020. Kelvin is anxious to know what the likely outcome of that hearing will be. He didn’t do very well in his Legal Research and Writing Course, so your task is to research case law and the relevant statute in order to advise him of the likely outcome of the hearing.  Our firm will also be representing him at the hearing.

 Kelvin recently graduated from Solomon College’s (“Solomon”) Paralegal program which is accredited by the Law Society of Ontario.  While he was a student at Solomon, Kelvin was written up on two occasions for violating Solomon’s Academic Integrity Policy.  On the first occasion, Kelvin’s Torts and Contracts professor, Susan Sharpe, determined that Kelvin had submitted someone else’s work as his own.  Kelvin’s professor identified the work submitted by Kelvin as that of a former student, Marsha Brayden who had since graduated from the Paralegal program.  In a meeting with the professor, Kelvin admitted that he had asked his cousin Marsha to give him her Torts and Contracts paper which he then submitted as his own.  Kelvin was given a written warning and was required to complete an Academic Integrity Remediation course. 

On the second occasion, in the third semester course, Ethics and Professional Practice for Paralegals, Professor Ethan Hawk determined that Kelvin had breached the Academic Integrity Policy by providing another student with a copy of his work.  Kelvin told the professor that he had given a copy
of his paper to the other student because he wanted to help the other student out.  Kelvin did not realize that the student had copied parts of his paper until he received an email from Professor Hawk attaching the two papers and advising of the breach of Solomon’s policy. On that occasion, the penalty was a zero grade on the assignment.  Kelvin ended up with an F grade in the course.  Kelvin was forced to wait a full year to retake the course because it was only offered once a year. He was successful in the course the second time around and really feels that he learned a lot about ethics as a result of his experiences.

Kelvin has completed all other requirements necessary to be licensed and particularly enjoyed his field practicum.  His boss at the placement location, Shel Silverstone a respected paralegal, is aware of Kelvin’s circumstances and has agreed to provide Kelvin with a character reference.  Kelvin contacted a few of his professors asking if they would provide references, but they refused to do so and they each used identical language when refusing his request: “After careful review of your conduct at Solomon and elsewhere, I have concluded that I cannot provide you with a character reference.” 

Kelvin is pretty sure that these refusals are because he posted a negative review of Professor Hawk on a rate your professor website.  The review was anonymous, but it contained some identifying details,


so it would not be hard for someone to figure out that Kelvin wrote the review.   Kelvin had thought he was being smart by waiting until he completed all the requirements of the program before submitting that review, but he now realizes that he should have been more careful.  He has not been able to delete the review because the site does not permit reviews to be deleted once they have been posted.

In his 2019 licensing application, Kelvin initially disclosed only the first semester incident.  Approximately one month later, the Law Society of Ontario requested further information about that incident, and when Kelvin requested that information from the college he realized that his entire file would be disclosed to the LSO.  At that point he filed a Good Character Amendment form with the LSO amending his earlier statement to include information about the second breach of the policy.

Kelvin has advised that when he breached the policy the first time it was because his parents had thrown him out of his house and he had temporarily moved in with his cousin’s family.  He left home without a laptop and asked to borrow his cousin’s.  She still had the assignment on the laptop and he was having trouble focusing because of his personal circumstances, so he just changed a few words in the assignment and submitted it as his own.

On the second occasion Kelvin says that he was just trying to help one of his friends, Mira Dimaggio, because she was in danger of failing the course.  He had already done the assignment before it was due, so he showed her his assignment.  He trusted her and did not think she would take advantage, but she clearly copied parts of it.  He says that the professor was really annoyed that someone would cheat in an ethics course. Kelvin does not think a zero grade was fair because he did all the work on the assignment himself.  He heard that Mira got a zero grade as well, but she deserved it for copying his work. Kelvin appealed the penalty decision, but his appeal was unsuccessful.

Kelvin says that in addition to the negative review of his professor he kind of ranted about it a bit on social media and he is nervous that the LSO will find out.  He deleted all the feeds, but he is still worrie