Florida A&M Legal Writing Director Faces Questions Over Paper Posted on bepress

Curious story in today's  St. Petersburg Times:  Errors Mar Law Prof's Paper; Some Students Question How the Legal Writing Director at FAMU's Law School Got Her Job, by Ron Matus:

In 2004, the woman who would become legal writing director at Florida A&M University's law school posted a working paper online so legal scholars nationwide could see her work. The subject was heady: environmental dispute resolution. But Victoria Dawson's paper was so riddled with grammatical errors and mangled writing that some FAMU law students are now using it to help build a case that Dawson is not qualified to teach and was hired primarily on the strength of her personal ties. ...

FAMU hired Dawson, 48, in 2005. At the time, she was a legal writing instructor at Texas Southern University ... The year before, either she or Texas Southern paid an online submission service run by Berkeley Electronic Press to circulate her paper to law journals in hopes of getting it published. ... A cleaned-up version of Dawson's paper was published in the fall 2006 edition of the Missouri Environmental Law & Policy Review. ...

Then-interim law school dean James M. Douglas recommended in August 2005 that Dawson be hired as a visiting associate professor. Last year, FAMU made her a permanent part of the faculty and put her on track toward tenure. She makes $105,000 a year.

(Hat Tip: Howard Bashman.)