President and CEO, The Buckeye Institute
Robert Alt is the President and Chief Executive Officer of The Buckeye Institute where he has catalyzed exponential growth since he took the organization’s helm in 2012. He has since founded Buckeye’s renowned Economic Research Center and established its impactful Legal Center.
Alt is a distinguished scholar and attorney with particular expertise in legal policy, criminal justice, national security, and constitutional law. He previously worked for former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese III, regularly provides commentary on television and radio programs, and his writings have appeared in countless outlets.
In 2004, Alt spent five months in Iraq as an embedded war correspondent.
Alt has testified before Congress multiple times—including at the confirmation hearings for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan—the Federal Election Commission regarding matters of constitutional and administrative law, and numerous state legislatures.
Alt serves as an officer on the boards of The Philadelphia Society and the Federalist Society’s Columbus Lawyers Chapter. He taught national security law, criminal law, and legislation at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, as well as constitutional law and political parties and interest groups at Ashland University.
Alt earned his Doctor of Law degree 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 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 Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and political science magna cum laude from Azusa Pacific University where he also won the Outstanding Senior Award in Political Science.
Alt is an accomplished high-altitude alpinist and endurance athlete who has successfully climbed 6.75 of the famed Seven Summits of the World including Mount Everest. He is the creator of PROFOUND CLIMBING™ and a frequent speaker across the country and around the world on legal and public policy topics as well as effective leadership, management, decision-making, and teamwork in contexts ranging from extraordinary life/death situations to ordinary professional/business settings.
Professor of Law, Notre Dame Law School
Professor Derek Muller is a nationally-recognized scholar in the field of election law. His research focuses on the role of states in the administration of federal elections, the constitutional contours of voting rights and election administration, the limits of judicial power in the domain of elections, and the Electoral College.
He has published more than two dozen academic works, and his op-eds have appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal. He has testified before Congress, and he is a contributor at the Election Law Blog. He is a co-author on a Federal Courts casebook published by Carolina Academic Press. He is also the co-reporter on a new Restatement of the Law, Election Litigation, an effort led by the American Law Institute.
Professor Muller teaches Election Law, Civil Procedure, and Evidence.
Executive Director, State and Local Legal Center
Lisa Soronen is the Executive Director of the SLLC. Prior to joining the SLLC, Lisa worked for the National School Boards Association, the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, and clerked for the Wisconsin Court of Appeals. She earned her J.D. at the University of Wisconsin Law School and is a graduate of Central Michigan University.
Partner, Briscoe Prows Kao Ivester & Bazel LLP
Tony Francois is experienced in Water and Real Property Law, Land Use and Zoning, Environmental Regulation, Natural Resources Development, Agricultural Law, and Constitutional Law. He has represented homeowners, builders, farmers and ranchers, trade associations, and water districts in administrative, civil, and criminal proceedings before state and federal administrative agencies and state and federal trial and appellate courts. He is a member of the California State Bar and the Northern, Eastern, and Central Districts of California and the Districts of New Mexico and North Dakota, and has litigated cases in federal courts in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia, as well as the Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeals. He has appeared before the Supreme Courts of California, Idaho, Nevada, and the United States.
Prior to attending law school, he served as an infantry officer in the United States Army, and was stationed in the former West Germany during the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Tony was an Attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation from 2012 to 2021. He was a lobbyist for 10 years, first with California Farm Bureau Federation from 2003 to 2007, and then with KP Public Affairs from 2007 to 2012. He was an attorney at McQuaid, Bedford & Van Zandt in San Francisco from 1999 – 2003.
Professor Emeritus, Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University
In memoriam
Dr. John Baker is Professor Emeritus of Law, and previously the Dale E. Bennett Professor of Law, at Louisiana State University Law School. He is currently Visiting Professor at Peking University School of Transnational Law (via Zoom) and has been Visiting Professor at The Center for the Constitution, Georgetown Law School (2013-2020). He has also been a Visiting Fellow at Oriel College, the University of Oxford (2012-2014) and taught at Blackfriars Hall, Oxford in 2014. Dr. Baker has also been an adjunct Fellow at the Heritage Foundation (Spring, 2008) and a Distinguished Scholar at the Catholic University of America Law School (2011-12). He has taught at Tulane Law School, George Mason Law School, Pepperdine Law School, New York Law School, Hong Kong University, and the University of Dallas, School of Management and also taught and/or lectured in 17 foreign countries. Notable among his foreign visits are the
following: Visiting Professor at the University of Lyon III (France) (1999-2011); Visiting Professor at the Universidad de los Andes, Chile (2012), as a Fulbright Specialist (2006); and a Fulbright Scholar at various universities in the Philippines. Dr. Baker received his J.D., with honors, from the University of Michigan Law School and his B.A., magna cum laude, from the University of Dallas. He also earned a Ph.D. in Political Thought from the University of London. Baker has taught over a dozen different subjects, mostly courses in public law. His main areas of interest are Constitutional Law (particularly federalism and separation of powers), Criminal Law, Anti-Terrorism Law, International Law, Health Care Law, Mediation, and Comparative Law.
In addition to law review articles and book chapters, Dr. Baker’s academic publications include Hall's Criminal Law: Cases and Materials (with Benson, Force and George; 5th ed. Michie, 1993); An Introduction to the Law of the United States (ed. with Levasseur; University Press of America, 1992). He has also published on Forbes.com, FoxNews.com, in The Washington Times, and a number of times in The Wall Street Journal. He argues in federal court, including two oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court. For many years, he co-taught courses for the Federalist Society on separation of powers with the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. In September 2016, he co-taught a Supreme Court seminar in China with Justice Samuel Alito. Following law school, he served as a law clerk in federal district court and as an assistant district attorney in New Orleans before joining LSU in 1975. While a professor, he has been as a consultant to USAID, USIA (since rolled into the State Department), the Justice Department, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, and the Office of Planning in the White House. He served on an ABA Task Force which issued the report, The Federalization of Crime (1998) and later as a consultant to the “Bi-Partisan Task Force on the Over- federalization of Crime” (2012-2014) created by the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime. Dr. Baker was a co-founder of the first iteration (1995) of Stratfor Inc., a global intelligence agency. He co-authored its first book: The Intelligence Edge (with Friedman, Friedman and Chapman; Crown Books/Random House 1997). In 2022, he began a short, weekly video podcast available on YouTube and Rumble, The Baker Brief.
Alaska Attorney General
Kevin G. Clarkson had a distinguished legal career spanning 34 years in private practice before his appointment as the Attorney General for the State of Alaska. He graduated with honors from Oregon State University with a bachelor’s degree in political science in 1981 and then graduated cum laude, in the top 10 percent of his class, from Willamette University College of Law in 1985.
Following law school, Perkins Coie offered him a position as a civil litigator in the firm’s Anchorage branch office. Mr. Clarkson then left his home state of Oregon to make a new home in Alaska. He worked at Perkins Coie for 10 years doing a wide range of work before joining the firm Brena, Bell & Clarkson, P.C. in 1995 where he continued to hone his skills as the firm’s Senior Litigation Attorney. He ended his practice with the law firm upon his appointment as Attorney General in December of 2018.
Over the course of his long legal career, Mr. Clarkson has represented a myriad of clients—from individuals, to Fortune 500 companies, to Native corporations, to municipalities, to Electrical Utilities, to small businesses, to the Alaska Legislature, and the State of Alaska. Because of the general nature of his practice, he has covered a wide range of topics and issues. He has litigated disputes involving personal injury, wrongful death, employment, contract disputes, business dissolutions, construction disputes, professional liability, medical malpractice, and oil and gas related matters. He has defended constitutional amendments and statutes passed by the people of Alaska. He has appeared before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals including the en banc panel of the Court and before the Alaska Supreme Court on a number of occasions.
His many years of experience and his professional demeanor has been recognized by his peers. He has received the highest rating, AV Preeminent, with Martindale-Hubbell and has been admitted to Super Lawyers every year since 2014.
When he’s not working, Mr. Clarkson enjoys spending time with his family. He has four grown children, two of whom have settled down in Alaska. One of his sons is serving in the United States Navy, and one of his daughters is currently living in Ohio. Mr. Clarkson also has a five-year-old step-son with his wife Johanna. And, he speaks Spanish.
Criminal Law Update: A Survey of State Law Changes in 2019
Robert Alt
Note from the Editor: The Federalist Society takes no positions on particular legal and public...
Thompson v. Hebdon - Post-Decision SCOTUScast
Derek T. Muller
On Nov. 25, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a summary opinion in Thompson v....
Topics
South Dakota Supreme Court Rejects a Version of ABA Model Rule 8.4(g)
On March 9, in a thoughtful letter, the Chief Justice of the South Dakota Supreme...
Topics
Iowa Supreme Court Extends Comment Deadline for ABA Model Rule 8.4(g): New Deadline December 30, 2019
The Iowa Supreme Court has extended its public comment period through 4:30 p.m., December 30,...
Topics
It Shouldn’t Be Illegal to Wear a T-shirt
It shouldn’t be illegal to wear a t-shirt. Yet several states, including California, Colorado, and...
Nieves v. Bartlett - Post-Decision SCOTUScast
Lisa Soronen
On May 28, 2019, the Supreme Court decided Nieves v. Bartlett, a case that considers...
Topics
Pennsylvania Disciplinary Board Considers Version of ABA Model Rule 8.4(g): Public Comment Deadline Is September 30, 2019
The Pennsylvania Disciplinary Board is holding a public comment period through September 30, 2019, on...
Topics
Iowa Supreme Court Considers ABA Model Rule 8.4(g): Comment Deadline September 30, 2019
The Iowa Supreme Court is holding a public comment period until 4:30 on September 30,...
Sturgeon v. Frost - Post-Decision SCOTUScast
Tony Francois
On March 26, 2019, the Supreme Court decided Sturgeon v. Frost, a case considering whether...
Why Separation of Powers Matters
Alaska Lawyers Chapter
Anchorage, AK