After earning a Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania, throughout the 1970s Stephen Brobeck taught American Studies at Case Western Reserve University.  During this period, he also initiated and help organize Cleveland Consumer Action, which resolved individual complaints through group action and published information for local consumers.  From 1981 to 2018, he served as executive director and CEO of the Consumer Federation of America (CFA).  Since then, he has continued his work with CFA as a senior fellow.

Brobeck has published both scholarly and popular books and articles.  They include the first annotated bibliography of the consumer movement, two encyclopedias of this movement, commercially published books on product safety and banking, journal articles, and numerous reports on credit, savings, insurance, and real estate brokerage practices and related public policies.  He has testified many times before Congress and regulatory agencies, served on dozens of advisory committees and boards including that of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, and has conceptualized and helped found several organizations.  Brobeck has held professorial appointments at Cornell, Maryland, and Utah.  His current research and advocacy focuses on the need for the residential real estate brokerage industry to become more transparent and price competitive.