Judge Alsop is a native of Webster Springs. He has a 1973 bachelor’s degree in political science from West Virginia University and a 1977 law degree from West Virginia University College of Law.
He was a sole practitioner in Webster Springs from 1977 to 1996 and served as the elected Webster County prosecutor from 1985 to 1989. He was chairman of the West Virginia Regional Jail and Correctional Facilities Authority from 1989 until 1996.
Then-Governor Gaston Caperton appointed him to the Fourteenth Judicial Circuit (Clay, Braxton, Gilmer, and Webster Counties) bench in 1996. He was elected in 1998 and re-elected 2000, 2008, and 2016.
Judge Alsop is chairman of the Supreme Court Compliance Committee on Prisons and Jails. He is a past president of the West Virginia Judicial Association and serves on the Legislative, Re-alignment, Pensions, and Special Needs Committees of the Judicial Association. He is a frequent speaker at continuing education seminars and is very active in the Supreme Court’s Robes to Schools program, in which he reads to school children and tells them about the judicial system.
He was named a Bar Foundation Fellow in 2013.
He and his wife, Linda, live in Webster Springs. They have three children and five grandchildren.