Justin Dillon

Practice Areas

Title IX and Campus Discipline

Civil Litigation

White-Collar Defense

Career

Justin is a member of the Edward Bennett Williams Inn of Court, an invitation-only professional organization devoted to white-collar practice, and the John Carroll Society. He teaches trial advocacy at Harvard Law School and has guest-lectured on criminal law and Title IX matters at Harvard, George Washington University, American University, and the University of Maryland. He is the former chair of the Continuing Legal Education Committee of the D.C. Bar and a member of the Board of Directors of Families Advocating for Campus Equality, a nonprofit organization devoted to bringing greater due process protections to campus disciplinary proceedings.

Publications

Conn. Ruling May Force Colleges to Rethink Title IX Hearings, Aaron Keller, Law360, June 28, 2023

“Biden’s Title IX changes would roll back fairness and due process on campus,” Justin Dillon & KC Johnson, The Washington Examiner, July 5, 2022

“The Future of Title IX: A Conversation with Justin Dillon,” Doug McKelway, The Washington Examiner, June 15, 2021

“Ending due process: Reinstating Catherine Lhamon at the Dept. of Education is a mistake,” Justin Dillon & Stuart Taylor, Jr., USA Today, June 14, 2021

“Why Does Joe Biden Hate Due Process?”, Justin Dillon & Candice Jackson, National Review, March 25, 2021

“The ACLU vs. due process: The nonprofit takes a surprising stand against more rights for those accused on campus,” KC Johnson & Justin Dillon, New York Daily News, May 21, 2020

“Coronavirus Is No Excuse to Delay the Education Department’s New Title IX Regulations,” Justin Dillon & KC Johnson, National Review, March 30, 2020

“DeVos’s Rules Bolster Rights of Students Accused of Sexual Misconduct,” (quoted), The New York Times, May 6, 2020

“New Title IX Proposal Would Restore Fairness in Sexual-Misconduct Cases,” Justin Dillon, The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 19, 2019

“The Common App will no longer require disclosure of criminal history. But what it still asks is more troubling.”, Justin Dillon & Scott Bernstein, The Washington Post, August 23, 2018

“Lawyers: DeVos is bringing due process to campus sexual assault cases,” Justin Dillon & Matt Kaiser, The Washington Post, September 11, 2017

“Why We Are Suing the Government on Behalf of Students Accused of Sexual Misconduct,” Justin Dillon & Robert Shibley, Law & Crime, April 13, 2016

“The Hidden Perils of Affirmative Consent Policies,” Justin Dillon & Hanna L. Stotland, The Harvard Crimson, March 22, 2017.

“Why it’s unfair for colleges to use outside investigators in rape cases,” Justin Dillon & Matt Kaiser, The Los Angeles Times, September 16, 2015

“The White House Flunks a Test on Sexual Assault,” Justin Dillon & Matt Kaiser, The Wall Street Journal, May 5, 2014

Industry Sector Expertise

Title IX and Campus Discipline:

The honors student who was allowed to graduate:

An honors student with a 4.0 GPA at a top ten university was accused of sexual assault. He hired a very well regarded, large national law firm to represent him in the disciplinary proceedings. He was found responsible, suspended, and told he wouldn’t be able to graduate with his class. The large firm reached out to us to help with the appeal. We argued that there wasn’t enough evidence to show that a person in his position would have thought the complaining witness was incapacitated. The finding was unanimously reversed on appeal; our client was exonerated and graduated with the rest of his classmates.

The mistake and the honorable accuser:

A student athlete had been accused of sexual assault but hadn’t told his parents because he didn’t think he would be found responsible since he hadn’t done anything wrong. He was, unfortunately, found responsible at the hearing. We were hired to file an appeal. We dove into the facts and worked with our client on his appeal. There were a number of things that our client hadn’t brought up at the hearing that strongly suggested that the accuser had consented to sex with him. The appeal explained how our client understood their interaction. To her credit, our client’s accuser read the appeal and realized that she just hadn’t understood how he interpreted their communication. She wrote to the school and said that she thought it may have just been a mistake. The school reversed the finding, and our client was exonerated.

The 36 Hour Appeal:

We represented a student who hadn’t told his parents he was accused of sexual assault, assuming that because he hadn’t done it, he wouldn’t be found responsible by his school. He was found responsible and expelled. His parents hired us 36 hours before his appeal was due. We quickly read the file and worked with him on the appeal, which pointed out serious flaws in the investigation and in the school’s process. As a result of our appeal, not only did the school reverse the finding and vacate the expulsion, they directed that a new investigator do a new investigation—after which he was completely exonerated. After seeing the second investigator’s report, the accuser didn’t even appeal the exoneration.

The Uber Receipt:

We represented a student who had sex with a woman who later claimed that she was too drunk to consent. We demanded her text messages from the school and ultimately got them. With those text messages and an Uber receipt, we were able to show that immediately after they had sex, she was awake, coherent, and able to communicate by text—even going so far as to thank our client for making sure she got home safe that night. As a result, we were able to prove that she couldn’t have been too drunk to consent. Our client was found not responsible.

The Ex-Girlfriend's Text Messages:

We represented a student who had been in a long-term relationship with a woman. He broke up with her. The next day, she filed a complaint against him with the school, alleging that he sexually assaulted her three times during their relationship. Our client was in the military, and she also filed a complaint against him with his commanding officer. When he broke up with her, our client had deleted all of their text exchanges. The school refused to ask her for a copy of the texts. We filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the military and, finally, days before the hearing, received the text messages. It turns out that the complaining witness had sent detailed, explicit text messages approving of what had happened during each alleged assault. Our client was found not responsible.

The Complainant Who Pursued our Client

We represented a student who had a girlfriend. Another student was attracted to him, though, and she hit on him at a party. Our client declined her advances. Two nights later, the same student came to his room, where he was drinking with friends. She drank with the friends, too, then hit on him again. They then had sex. The next morning, she said she had been too drunk to consent and that she wouldn’t have had sex with someone who had a girlfriend. Incredibly, at the hearing, the school initially said we couldn’t talk about the incident, just two nights before they had sex, when the complainant had propositioned our client. After lobbying the school’s lawyer and making it clear this would be a serious issue if our client lost and we sued the school, the school changed its mind. Our client was found not responsible.

The School Official with an Axe to Grind:

Our client was found not responsible at a hearing at a public school. The complaining witness appealed. On appeal, a school official reversed the finding because he had an axe to grind with our client. We sued in federal court and, after months of litigation, the judge granted summary judgment in our favor – finding that there was no need for a trial because the evidence was so strong that our client’s rights had been violated. Even better, after we won, the judge ruled that the school had to pay the vast majority of our attorneys’ fees.

The Case of the Ignored Text Messages:

Our client’s school had expelled him for having sex with a woman who had been drinking; his appeal was already over by the time he hired us. We investigated and found crucial text messages from our client’s roommates, who were in the room and sober when our client had sex. They demonstrated that the complaining witness was not too drunk to consent. Worse, the school’s investigator was told about these text messages during the investigation, but she had never asked to see the texts. We approached the school and showed them the texts; they didn’t care. So we filed suit in federal court and asked for a preliminary injunction allowing him to stay in school. At the hearing, the judge said he had serious concerns about how the school handled the case and, before he ruled, he would give the school a chance to resolve it. We were able to work out a favorable settlement for our client.

Education

Awards