Throughout his career as an advocate, an academic, and a regulator, Bob Adler has sought to protect consumers, with a special focus on the safety of those using consumer products. After graduating from the University of Michigan Law School, he served as deputy attorney general for the Pennsylvania Justice Department, where he headed the southwest regional office of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Consumer Protection. During this period, he also helped found the nonprofit Alliance for Consumer Protection based in Pittsburgh. From 1973 to 1984 he served as an attorney-advisor to two commissioners of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). One of these commissioners was fellow CPC expert David Pittle, his co-author of an influential law review article on the greater effectiveness of regulation than consumer education campaigns. Adler then served for several years as counsel to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, led by Henry Waxman, on CPSC and product safety issues.

For the next twenty-plus years, Adler was as a professor of Legal Studies and the Luther Hodges Jr., Scholar in Ethics and Law at the University of North Carolina, where his research included product safety, product liability, regulation, commercial law, medical malpractice, and negotiation. In 2009, he was appointed by President Obama as a commissioner of the CPSC, a position he held until 2021. Adler was elected six times to the board of directors of Consumers Union.