Paula T. Dow
Attorney General
2010-2012

Paula Dow, one of the first Cabinet appointments announced by Governor Chris Christie, assumed the position of Acting Attorney General on January 19, 2010. Her nomination as New Jersey's 58th Attorney General and head of the Department of Law and Public Safety was confirmed by unanimous vote of the Senate Judiciary Committee on February 8, and approved by the full Senate in a vote held February 22, 2010.

Dow, previously served as the Essex County Prosecutor from October 2003. Her six-year tenure in Essex County, the state’s largest and busiest prosecutor’s office, was marked by improved organization, the county’s highest criminal conviction rate since 2000, and a host of successful prosecutions that took dangerous street gangs, drug-dealing operations and other violent criminals off the streets. Under Dow, the prosecutor’s office apprehended and obtained indictments against those accused of the brutal Newark school yard killings of 2007.

Prior to becoming Essex County Prosecutor, Dow served for many years with the U.S. Attorney’s office. From 1994 to 2003, she worked in Newark in the U.S. Attorney’s Office-District of New Jersey. There, she served as Counsel to then U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie and prosecuted casesin the Special Prosecutions Division, as well as the Criminal Division. Dow also served in the U.S. Attorney’s Office-Southern District of New York from 1987 through 1994, where she prosecuted and defended cases in the Civil Division.

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