[2][4] His mother, Sophie B. Altman (née Robinson; –2008), was a graduate of Yale Law School, a television producer, and created the program It's Academic in 1961.

[6] Robert A. Altman was raised in the Cleveland Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C., and graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School.

As a Washington, D.C., attorney, Altman represented major companies before federal regulatory agencies, before Congress, or in litigation.

[9] From 1978 to 1982, Altman and Clifford represented a group of wealthy Arab businessmen, including members of the royal family from Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia in their efforts to acquire a multi-state bank holding company, Financial General Bankshares.

Questions were raised whether the Arab investors had falsely represented to bank regulators the true ownership of First American.

[11] In 1992, Clifford and Altman were charged in indictments by the New York District Attorney and the Department of Justice, as well as being named in a civil suit by the Federal Reserve.

In the summer of 1993, after a five-month trial, the court dismissed the central count in the indictment of bribery, saying no evidence had been presented by the government to support it.

[20] Altman being the partner of Clark Clifford used his connections as a lawyer to stack ZeniMax's Advisory board with such high profile political figures like Terry McAuliffe,[21][22] George J. Mitchell[22] and Tony Coelho[22] with McAuliffe and Mitchell joining the advisory board in 2000[23] while Coelho joined in 2001.

[28] James Altman worked at his father's ZeniMax subsidiary Bethesda Softworks as the Director of Publishing Operations.