Grant Christensen is a nationally recognized expert on Federal Indian Law whose research often 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 of Law at the University of Oregon. He also taught at the Pre-Law Summer Institute (PLSI), a summer program organized by the American Indian Law Center and held at the University of New Mexico designed to help Indigenous students prepare for law school, in 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2023. In 2011, Professor Christensen received a Fulbright scholarship to research for a year in Vilnius, Lithuania. He speaks very basic Lithuanian and enjoys talking about life in the Baltic States. He continues to be a Foreign Scholar Partner at Vilnius University Faculty of Law in Lithuania.
Professor Christensen received his B.A. in American studies and political science 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 licensed member of the bar in Minnesota and the courts of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.