This semester, The University of Alabama School of Law welcomed six new faculty members. Learn more about each of them below.
S. Sean Tu
Professor of Law
Sean Tu is a nationally recognized expert on patent law and drug law. A prolific scholar with over fifty publications, his work has appeared in top medical and law journals, including New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Nature Biotechnology, and Stanford Technology Law Review, among others. His 2024 co-authored article, Differential Legal Protections for Biologics vs Small-Molecule Drugs in the U.S., was the recipient of AcademyHealth’s 2025 Publication of the Year award. He has also co-authored several amicus briefs–one of which was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court–and casebooks on biotechnology law and intellectual property law.
Professor Tu is affiliated with both Harvard Medical School’s Program on Regulation, Therapeutics, and Law (PORTAL) and Georgetown University Law Center’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. From 2021-22, he was a visiting professor at Harvard Medical School. The National Institutes of Health Care Management awarded Professor Tu a grant to study the intersection between patent law and drug pricing. Prior to his tenure as Associate Dean for Faculty Research and Development at West Virginia University College of Law, Professor Tu was an associate at Foley & Lardner LLP, where he prosecuted pharmaceutical patents.
Professor Tu holds degrees in chemistry and microbiology from the University of Florida and a J.D. from the University of Chicago, where he was a research assistant for Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Dr. Tu received his doctorate in pharmacology from Cornell University and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology in California.
In addition to his scholarly work and public service, Professor Tu has worked as an expert witness in patent law cases and helped start a company focused on patent prosecution analytics as well as a biotechnology company focused on cancer cell biology.
Grant T. Christensen
Associate Professor of Law
Grant Christensen is a nationally recognized expert on Federal Indian Law whose research explores the intersection between Federal Indian Law and civil procedure, federal courts, and conflict of laws. He has served as a tribal appellate judge for the Standing Rock Sioux and Fort Peck and Assiniboine Sioux Tribes, has co-chaired the ABA Business Law Section’s Tribal Litigation Subcommittee, and is a peer reviewer for American Indian Law Review. He has appeared as an expert on NPR’s Morning Edition and has been quoted by PBS, The Washington Post, U.S. News and World Report, and numerous state and local outlets.
Professor Christensen has co-authored two textbooks on Federal Indian Law, Reading American Indian Law: Foundational Principles (Cambridge University Press 2020) (with Melissa Tatum) and Introduction to American Indian Studies: Policies, Histories, and Contemporary Issues (Kendall/Hunt 2021) (with Sebastian Braun and Birgit Hans). He has recently published articles in Columbia Law Review, California Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, Florida Law Review, Iowa Law Review, Southern California Law Review, Washington & Lee Law Review, and many others. Professor Christensen’s scholarship has been cited by numerous courts and practitioners and is included in the major Indian Law treatises Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law and The American Indian Law Deskbook.
Before joining the faculty at Alabama Law, Professor Christensen was an associate professor at Stetson University College of Law, the Rodney & Betty Webb Professor of Law at the University of North Dakota School of Law, and a visiting professor at the University of Oregon School of Law. He also spent four summers teaching at the Pre-Law Summer Institute (PLSI), a summer program organized by the American Indian Law Center designed to help Indigenous students prepare for law school. In 2011, Professor Christensen spent a year in Vilnius, Lithuania, as a Fulbright Scholar and continues to be a Foreign Scholar Partner at Vilnius University Faculty of Law.
Professor Christensen received his B.A. from the University of Richmond, his J.D. from the Ohio State University College of Law, and his LL.M. in Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy from the University of Arizona. He is a member of the bar in Minnesota.
Tomer Stein
Associate Professor of Law
Tomer Stein focuses his teaching and scholarship on corporate law and governance, mergers and acquisitions, securities regulation, and corporate finance. Prior to joining the faculty at Alabama Law, Professor Stein was an assistant professor and Wilkinson Research Professor at the University of Tennessee College of Law as well as a research fellow in the Neel Corporate Governance Center of the Haslam College of Business at UT. His scholarly publications have appeared or are forthcoming in leading law journals such as Columbia Law Review, Washington University Law Review, Georgia Law Review, and Arizona State Law Journal.
Professor Stein previously practiced corporate law at the New York office of Latham & Watkins, where he focused on capital markets, general securities, and corporate governance. He has served as a legal consultant and expert witness in contract, corporate, and other business law matters, including to the capital markets arm of the Royal Bank of Canada, and is a member of the executive committee of the Business Associations section of AALS. He previously served as a foreign law clerk to Justice Isaac Amit of the Supreme Court of Israel.
Professor Stein received his B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, his J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law, and is a member of the bar in the state of New York.
Jeffrey R. Baker
Associate Dean of Experiential Learning
Clinical Professor of Law
Jeff Baker is the Law School’s first Associate Dean of Experiential Learning and a Clinical Professor of Law. He directs the Law School’s seven clinics and helps lead other programs of experiential education across the curriculum. His scholarship focuses on issues of human rights and dignity, social justice, legal education, and ethics at the intersections of law, theology, jurisprudence, and public policy.
From 2013 to 2025, Dean Baker served as the Associate Dean of Clinical Education and Global Programs at Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law in Los Angeles. During that time, he founded and directed the Community Justice Clinic and the Disaster Relief Clinic. He led the school’s programs in London, Washington, D.C., Germany, and Switzerland, and he taught, trained, and consulted with partners in India, Brazil, the Philippines, and the United Kingdom. While at Pepperdine, he received the 2025 Stephen J. Ellmann Memorial Clinical Scholarship Award from the Association of American Law Schools, the 2024 Belonging Award for Faculty, and the 2019 Citizen of the Year Dolphin Award from The Malibu Times, among other honors.
Before joining Pepperdine, Dean Baker served as an Associate Professor of Law and the Director of Clinical Programs at Faulkner University Jones School of Law in Montgomery. There, he directed the Family Violence Clinic and founded the Elder Law Clinic. He also received the Martin Luther King Jr. Spirit Honors Award from The Montgomery Advertiser in 2009, was named an Honorary Member of the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office, and was named Professor of the Year in 2012.
Dean Baker holds degrees in political science and ministry from Harding University in Arkansas. After graduating from Vanderbilt University Law School in 2000, he returned to his home state of Mississippi where he had a diverse trial and appellate practice in complex litigation with Watkins & Eager in Jackson after a stint with Phelps Dunbar. He also taught as an adjunct at Belhaven University in Jackson.
Dean Baker speaks and writes regularly on legal education, professional formation, public interest lawyering, and social justice. He is a mediator and teaches strategic negotiation. He edits the Clinical Law Prof Blog and is actively involved with the Clinical Legal Education Association and the Clinical Legal Education section of AALS. He has served as a director and counsel for several nonprofits devoted to human rights, social justice, and community development, and he is active in church service and leadership. This past year, he was named a 2025 Fellow of the Fred D. Gray Institute for Civil and Human Rights.
Dean Baker is a member of the Alabama, Mississippi, and California bar associations.
Jennifer Mart-Rice
Associate Dean of Legal Information Services
Associate Professor of Law in Residence
Jennifer Mart-Rice serves as the Associate Dean of Legal Information Services and an Associate Professor of Law in Residence. She is responsible for directing and leading the Bounds Law Library, teaching advanced legal research courses, and coordinating with the legal writing faculty to teach legal research to first-year law students. She speaks and writes regularly on leadership and organization, legal research pedagogy, library collections, and the intersection of law and technology.
Prior to joining Alabama Law, Dean Mart-Rice was the associate director at the University of Iowa Law Library, the Head of Collection Services at Washington & Lee University School of Law, and an assistant director and assistant professor at Northern Kentucky University Chase College of Law. She practiced law in Indiana. Dean Mart-Rice earned her M.S. in Library Science from the University of Kentucky, J.D. from Northern Kentucky University, and B.A. degrees from Indiana University (Bloomington).
Anne Miles Golson
Assistant Professor of Legal Writing
Anne Miles Golson is the Law School’s newest member of the legal writing faculty. Prior to joining Alabama Law, Professor Golson practiced healthcare law and appellate litigation in Birmingham for a national, full-service law firm. She has argued cases before various judicial and administrative bodies, including the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, Provider Reimbursement Review Board, and Office of Medicare Hearings and Appeals. She also maintained an active pro bono practice, representing several incarcerated individuals in both state and federal post-conviction appeals. Before entering private practice, Professor Golson clerked for Hon. Andrew L. Brasher of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Professor Golson graduated summa cum laude from Alabama Law in 2020, where she was a member of the national championship-winning New York City Bar National Moot Court Competition team and was named overall best advocate at the competition. She also served as a Junior Editor for Alabama Law Review and was inducted into Order of the Barristers, Order of the Coif, and Bench & Bar Legal Honor Society.