Faculty
Robert S. Adler, JD (Bob)
Professor of Legal Studies
Kenan-Flagler Business School
CB # 3490, McColl Building
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3490
919-962-3156
bob_adler@bschool.unc.edu
Robert S. Adler is professor of legal studies at the Kenan-Flagler Business School. He has served both as Associate Dean of the MBA Program and Associate Dean for the School’s Bachelor of Science in Business Administration Program. Bob graduated cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania in 1966 with a major in political science. He received a JD from the University of Michigan Law School in 1969.
After graduation from law school, Bob held a variety of jobs as an attorney. He served as a deputy attorney general for the Pennsylvania Justice Department, where he headed the southwest regional office of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Consumer Protection. He spent nine years as an attorney-advisor to two commissioners at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission in Washington, D.C. Subsequently, he served as counsel to the Subcommittee on Health and the Environment of the Committee on Energy and Commerce in the U.S. House of Representatives. While on the subcommittee, he worked on legislation relating to product liability, childhood vaccines, the Food and Drug Administration, medical malpractice, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission. He also helped staff hearings on drug pricing policies of the pharmaceutical industry and on various smoking issues.
Bob came to the University of North Carolina in 1987. At the Kenan-Flagler Business School, he has taught courses in business law (including one on negotiable instruments and sales), business ethics, and business-government relations. Bob is the former coordinator of the business ethics course, which is mandatory for all students enrolled in the MBA program.
In addition to these courses, he has also conducted MBA workshops on team building and group dynamics, leadership, and negotiation. He has particularly focused on negotiation in recent years. Bob won a university-wide teaching award, the Tanner Award, in 1996 and the undergraduate program's Distinguished Teaching Award in 1990.
Bob's research interests include product safety, product liability, regulation, commercial law, medical malpractice, and negotiation. On January 25, 2001, his article, "When David Meets Goliath: Dealing With Power Differentials in Negotiation", in the Spring 2000 issue of the Harvard Negotiation Law Review (co-authored with Elliot Silverstein) received the annual best article award by the CPR Institute for Dispute Resolution.
Bob has been involved in numerous consumer protection and education activities for many years. He has been elected four times to the board of directors of Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports magazine.