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Paula Dow

American lawyer

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 18, 2026
Entity authorityQ7154671 ↗
Source-derived summary

Paula T. Dow (born 1955) is an American lawyer and judge. She served as the 58th Attorney General of New Jersey, appointed by incoming Governor Chris Christie. Her nomination to a full term was confirmed by the New Jersey Senate in February 2010. She is the first African-American woman to be attorney general in state history.

On December 12, 2011, Christie announced that Dow would temporarily become the First Deputy General Counsel for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and that he had nominated Jeffrey S. Chiesa, then Christie's chief counsel, to become the new Attorney General. The governor also said he would file a notice of intent to nominate Dow to a Superior Court judgeship in Essex County. Chiesa was sworn in as Dow's successor on January 10, 2012.

Early life and education

Dow was born in 1955. She was raised in Yeadon, Pennsylvania, located outside of Philadelphia. She graduated from Franklin & Marshall College with a B.A. degree in 1977.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Paula Dow” as american lawyer. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1955, 2010, 2011, 2012—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1955-01-01. The account is most persuasive where Paula, American and lawyer can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american lawyer. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7154671. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1955, 2010, 2011 and 2012.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Paula Dow”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Paula Dow primary sources, Paula Dow archive and Paula research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Paula Dow”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Paula Dow” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.