[1] Following the outbreak of World War II, Christensen served in the United States Navy from 1942 to 1945, returning to private practice in Provo from 1945 to 1954.

Christensen was sworn in on June 26, 1954, and became the first member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be appointed to the federal bench in Utah.

[3] Christensen received a Juris Doctor from George Washington University Law School in 1968, and assumed senior status on August 17, 1971.

[6] Christensen was "touched" by the scene, and said later that he purposefully kept another case—this one involving an individual who was about to be deported—outside of his courtroom so that the soon-to-be-deported man would not have to witness new citizens being sworn in.

[7] Throughout his career, Christensen was involved in several antitrust cases including Pioneer Drive-in Theater vs. MGM and others in 1963, Fisher Baking vs. Continental Baking and Utah Gas Pipeline Co. vs. El Paso Natural Gas in 1964, United States vs. Beatrice Foods in 1969, and Gardiner and others vs. Gold Strike Stamps in 1973.

[5] At his numerous speaking engagements, Christensen frequently warned against accepting lawlessness as an instrument of social change and insisted that "the American Dream does live".

In 1971 he attacked a Utah law which denied legal counsel to indigents charged with a misdemeanor that carried with it a six-month or less incarceration sentence.

[10] As early as 1965, Christensen had introduced a tax-supported plan by which indigents charged with federal crimes could receive legal aid.

[3] Teaching trial practice law, a growing conviction that students and new lawyers did not have enough training in trial practice, and the urging of Chief Justice Warren Burger spurred Christensen, along with J. Reuben Clark Law School Dean Rex Lee and Chief Justice Burger, to experiment with the British Inns of Court system to try to create an American equivalent.

In the fall 1983, Chief Justice Burger created a Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States on the American Inns of Court.

[1] Christensen received many awards and distinctions in both his practice as a trial lawyer and his time as a United States district judge.

[16] Christensen's academic works include Handbook of Trial Practices in the United States District Court published in 1969, Law Briefs for Laymen in 1975, Preliminary Notes on Principles and Procedures of Superior Legal Advocacy: Where the Rules and Code Leave Off in 1976, Persons and Processes: An Anecdotal View of Federal Judicial Administration, 19554 to 1991 published in 1993, "The Abalone Shell" in 1996.