UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law Appoints Thirteen New Faculty Members to Its Ranks

New faculty members excel in the practice and teaching of law.

CONCORD, NH, August 9, 2022: UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law welcomes thirteen new highly accomplished faculty members, strengthening its mission to provide students with the best legal education possible.  These faculty members represent a broad range of skills, experiences, and aptitudes, have tremendous lived experience of the law, and are dedicated to supporting UNH Franklin Pierce’s students in becoming practice-ready attorneys.

“We are so excited to add such impressive talent to our roster of dedicated faculty,” said Dean Megan Carpenter. “Due to their commitment to supporting and collaborating with students, our new faculty members are a perfect fit for UNH Franklin Pierce. These faculty members bring extensive teaching experience, innovative research, and creative scholarship to their roles, and I know they will help fortify the success of our student body.”

New Full-Time Faculty:

Melissa Christensen, JD

Assistant Professor of Legal Skills

Melissa Christensen is an expert in health law and legal writing, which she has taught at various law schools across the country.  She also served as Assistant Counsel for Philadelphia Corporation for Aging and worked in Legal Affairs at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Additionally, Professor Christensen is a national official for US Figure Skating and the incoming Chair of US Figure Skating’s Grievance Committee.

Kevin Frost, JD

Director of Academic Success and Assistant Professor of Legal Skills

Prior to joining the faculty at UNH Franklin Pierce, Kevin Frost held various positions in the commercial bar exam preparation industry. He was an attorney director with Themis Bar Review for 7 years. During that time, he worked with several schools to create bar exam support classes and post-graduation bar exam tutoring programs. Since 2015, Professor Frost has traveled around the country to teach workshops and bar prep classes at over a dozen law schools, covering each core subject and testing component on the exam.

Tiffany C. Li, JD

Assistant Professor of Law

Tiffany Li has just finished her first year at the law school, teaching in the areas of internet law, technology, and privacy. She previously taught Technology Law and supervised in the BU/MIT Technology Law Clinic at Boston University School of Law. Prior to academia, she worked in law and policy at leading technology organizations including the Wikimedia Foundation. Professor Li has been honored with a variety of accolades, including Transatlantic Digital Debates Fellow (Global Public Policy Institute/New America Foundation), Fellow of Information Privacy (International Association of Privacy Professionals), Internet Law and Policy Foundry Fellow (Internet Education Foundation), Fastcase 50 honoree, and Intellectual Property Law Fellow (American Bar Association). Professor Li has CIPP/US, CIPP/E, CIPT, and CIPM certifications from the International Association of Privacy Professionals.  She is a Fellow at Yale Law School’s Information Society Project.

Maggie O’Grady, JD

Assistant Professor of Legal Skills

Maggie O’Grady joins UNH Franklin Pierce after a successful career as a litigator, serving most recently as a Senior Staff Attorney at the Project on Predatory Lending (“PPSL”), a clinical program formerly housed at the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School. At PPSL, she served as lead attorney in two Administrative Procedure Act class actions against the Department of Education on behalf of over 160,000 defrauded student borrowers and argued in the Ninth Circuit to depose former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. Prior to PPSL, Professor O’Grady spent ten years in the Government and Regulatory Affairs department in the Boston office of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, where she represented a variety of pharmaceutical and tech companies in antitrust litigation and investigations. Professor O’Grady is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Wellesley College and serves on the Board of Directors of PPSL.

Seth C. Oranburg, JD

Associate Professor of Law

Seth Oranburg taught Contracts, Business Associations, and Venture Capital Transactions for five years at Duquesne University School of Law, where he earned the John & Liz Murray Faculty Scholarship Award and the Presidential Scholarship Award. Professor Oranburg is the recipient of several grants from institutions including the Templeton Foundation, the Clifford Asness Foundation, and the Institute for Humane Studies. Oranburg is the Co-Director of the Program on Business, Organizations, and Markets at the Classical Liberal Institute at NYU School of Law. He authored the forthcoming casebook, Contract Law: Exposition, Cases, and Problems. Professor Oranburg practiced as an antitrust attorney at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP and as a start-up attorney at Fenwick & West LLP.

Heather Ward, JD

Assistant Professor of Legal Skills

Heather Ward has expertise in both civil and criminal litigation. She has most recently been in civil practice at Getman, Schultess, Steere & Poulin. Prior to her civil practice, Professor Ward worked as a staff attorney at the New Hampshire Public Defender for eight years.  Professor Ward’s work at the Public Defender also included working at the Appellate Defender Program on appeals before the New Hampshire Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court. She also clerked for Associate Justice James Duggan at the New Hampshire Supreme Court, and in New Hampshire Superior Courts.

Sindiso Mnisi Weeks, PhD, MSt

Associate Professor of Law

Sindiso Mnisi Weeks has served as an Associate Professor of Law and Society in the School for Global Inclusion and Social Development at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She is also an Adjunct Associate Professor in Public Law at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, where she was previously a senior researcher. Dr. Mnisi Weeks, a Rhodes Scholar, clerked for the Deputy Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. Dr. Mnisi Weeks’s work has received several awards, including the Women in Science Award for the Development of Rural Women through Science and Technology, as well as support from the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program and Social Science Research Council–Mellon Mays Graduate Initiatives Program.

Visiting Faculty:

Michael Dube, JD

Visiting Assistant Professor of Law

During his nearly two decades of litigation practice in sports and health law, Michael Dube was part of a team representing Maurice Clarett in his challenge to the NFL’s draft eligibility rules. Additionally, Professor Dube has litigated in federal and state courts and arbitral forums throughout the country and served as part of several trial teams achieving significant plaintiffs and defense verdicts.  Professor Dube has also worked closely with the nation’s foremost clinical trials litigator in cases arising out of the testing of new drugs and indications, as well as medical devices, and challenges to FDA action under the Administrative Procedure Act.

Julian Jefferson, JD

Visiting Assistant Professor of Law

Julian Jefferson specializes in criminal law and served as an attorney for 11 years at the New Hampshire Public Defender. He handled a wide range of cases from juvenile delinquency matters to allegations of murder. Over the years, he has participated in 32 jury trials ranging from misdemeanor appeals to aggravated sexual assault and murder, resulting in several acquittals. In addition, Professor Jefferson engaged in extensive litigation in both the Circuit and Superior Courts. He has received the Robert E. Kirby Award for excellent advocacy from the NH Bar Association and the Champions of Justice Award from the NH Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

Doris Long, JD

Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law

Doris Long is an internationally renowned professor in international, comparative, and domestic intellectual property, antitrust, information (cyber)security, and art law. She has taught in eleven countries, including serving as a Fulbright Professor at Jiao Tung University in Shanghai, China; as a Visiting Fellow at University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia; and as a Visiting Professor at Metropolitan University in Prague, Czech Republic. Professor Long is Professor Emerita of Law and Former Director of the Center for Intellectual Property, Information & Privacy Law, at the University of Illinois Chicago, School of Law. Before joining the faculty of UIC Law, Professor Long was an attorney with the Washington, DC law firms of Arent Fox Kintner Plotkin & Kahn, and Howrey and Simon.

Julia Pothen, JD

Visiting Assistant Professor of Legal Skills

Julia Pothen is a graduate of Harvard Law School, Pace University, Dartmouth College, and Oxford University Keble College, and has taught at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Harvard College (where she earned the Leveson Memorial Teaching Prize for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching) and for Teach for America, where she taught 7^th Grade Literacy in the Bronx. Professor Pothen comes to us from legal practice where she served as a Special Education Attorney working with schools and families, following a period as both a Claims Investigator for the Maine Department of Education and a public Defender in New Hampshire.

Chris Reed, JD/LLM

Distinguished Professor of Practice

Chris Reed serves as the head of intellectual property at Fox Corporation in Los Angeles, where he also oversees content litigation and antitrust matters. Prior to his current role, he was the head of global content protection at 21^st Century Fox, and previously served as a senior policy advisor to the director of the US Copyright Office, and a trial attorney at the Antitrust Division of the US Department of Justice in Washington, DC. He began his legal career as a law clerk to the Hon. Steven J. McAuliffe, a senior district judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire. Professor Reed is a prolific author on copyright and media; his latest book Digital Media Law: A Practical Guide for the Media and Entertainment Industries is due out this fall from Routledge.

Ed Timberlake, JD

Distinguished Visiting Assistant Professor of Law

Ed Timberlake worked as a Trademark Examining Attorney at the US Patent & Trademark Office, a Copyright Examiner at the US Copyright Office, and has taught trademark law at Campbell University School of Law, and innovation at Duke University. Professor Timberlake is also co-chair of the Trademark Law Committee of the North Carolina Bar Association Intellectual Property Law Council, a member of the Public Information Committee of the International Trademark Association (INTA), and a past co-chair of the Academic Committee of INTA. He is one of fewer than 50 Board Certified Specialists in trademark law in the country.

For more information about Franklin Pierce School of Law, please visit http://law.unh.edu/. For more information Franklin Pierce School of Law’s faculty, visit on Faculty Directory | University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law (unh.edu).

Contact: Lauren K. Terry, [email protected], 857-225-2836