My fiancee is an assistant professor going up for tenure at a private university. She received a favorable review from her departmental committee, but following the recommendation of the college-level committee, the dean voted no on her case.

There seems to have been a procedural transgression, however. The college policy is that all tenured professors (including both associate professors and full professors) sit on the college-level committee to review new tenure cases. However, for at least the last several years, associate professors have not been included on the committee. In my fiancee's case, this meant that some of the would-be committee members who best understand her work and contributions were not members of the committee.

From our perspective, it's a pretty egregious procedural violation that has potentially had negative impacts on multiple previous candidates as well as my fiancee. We are trying to set a consultation with a labor lawyer to see if our hunch is correct.

Does anyone here have preliminary suggestions for things to ask about? What should we be trying to learn or do at this point?