Robert Alt is the President and Chief Executive Officer of The Buckeye Institute, where he also serves on the Board of Trustees.

Alt’s leadership has been the catalyst for The Buckeye Institute’s exponential growth since he took the organization’s helm in 2012.  He has since founded The Buckeye Institute’s esteemed Economic Research Center and Legal Center, from which the Buckeye team not only imagines public policy victories but compels them with sound data, objective research, and strategic litigation.

Alt is a nationally recognized scholar with expertise in legal policy including criminal justice, national security, and constitutional law.  Prior to heading The Buckeye Institute, Alt was a Director in the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies serving under former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese III at The Heritage Foundation, where he regularly advised Members of Congress and Supreme Court litigants on complex legal arguments and strategy.

Alt is a frequent speaker at dozens of universities and law schools across the country, and his writings have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, New York Post, U.S. News & World Report, The San Diego Union-Tribune, and SCOTUSblog. Alt is a longtime contributor to National Review Online, where he has published more than 100 articles and blogs.  He has provided commentary on CNN, Fox News Channel, PBS and its affiliates, and numerous syndicated radio programs.

In 2004, Alt spent five months in Iraq as a war correspondent.

Alt has testified before Congress multiple times—including at the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan—before the Federal Election Commission regarding matters of constitutional and administrative law, and before numerous state legislatures and committees.

Alt serves on the Board of Trustees for The Philadelphia Society, the Board of Governors for the Council for National Policy, the Boards of Directors for the Free Speech in Science Project and Center, the Federalist Society’s Columbus Lawyers Chapter board, and the Board of Advisors for the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University where he has taught classes in constitutional law and political parties and interest groups. Alt also previously taught national security law, criminal law, and legislation at Case Western Reserve University School of Law.

Alt is an attorney admitted to the bars of Ohio and the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Sixth and D.C. Circuits, a member of the Mont Pelerin Society, the U.S. Supreme Court Historical Society, and a former Fellow in the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence at the Claremont Institute where he was also a Publius Fellow in 1998.

Alt earned his J.D. from The University of Chicago Law School, where he was Symposium Editor and the winner of the Mulroy Prize for Excellence in Appellate Advocacy as well as Research Assistant to renowned law professor Richard Epstein. Following law school, he clerked for Judge Alice Batchelder on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Alt graduated with his B.A. in political science and philosophy magna cum laude from Azusa Pacific University where he won the Outstanding Senior Award in Political Science.