Adelman was a research assistant at Columbia from 1965 to 1966. He was a trial attorney for the Legal Aid Society of Wisconsin from 1967 to 1968, and then entered private practice in Milwaukee in 1968. In 1993, Adelman represented Todd Mitchell, a black man convicted of a racially motivated attack against a 14-year old white boy, in
Wisconsin v. Mitchell, a landmark
first amendment case.
Political career Adelman made his first bid for elected office in 1974, running for
U.S. House of Representatives and seeking to oust ten-term Republican incumbent
Glenn Robert Davis from
Wisconsin's 9th congressional district. Davis, who was a close ally of then-president
Richard Nixon, was politically wounded by the
Watergate scandal and Nixon's other recent controversies. Adelman focused much of his campaign on issues of executive overreach and the need for Congress to re-assert its authority. Davis, however, was defeated in the Republican primary by moderate Republican
Bob Kasten. The general election was one of the most hotly-contested in the state, with both campaigns breaching
campaign finance limits that had existed at that time—Adelman spent about $104,000 and Kasten spent about $89,000 (adjusted for inflation, $677,000 and $579,000, respectively). Kasten defeated Adelman with 52% of the vote. In the aftermath of the election, Adelman was critical of some of Kasten's early votes in Congress and seemed intent on a rematch in 1976. Rather than running again for Congress in 1976, Adelman moved south from
Shorewood, Wisconsin—in northern Milwaukee County—to
New Berlin, Wisconsin—in southeast
Waukesha County. The move immediately sparked speculation that Adelman would instead run for
Wisconsin Senate against Republican incumbent
James Devitt in the
28th Senate district. Shortly after Adelman's move, newspapers broke the story that Devitt was the subject of a
John Doe investigation relating to campaign finance violations during his run for governor in 1974. Adelman officially announced his candidacy in June 1976. Devitt was indicted a month later. Despite the indictment, Devitt won renomination against two Republican challengers. Adelman won the general election in a landslide, receiving nearly two thirds of the vote. In the campaign, Adelman sought to tie Zablocki to the economic policies of the Reagan administration in the midst of the
early 1980s recession. Zablocki was sometimes seen as too conservative for his safely Democratic district, but he fended off the criticisms and distanced himself from Reagan, winning the primary with 60% of the vote. Zablocki died just a year later and Adelman made another run in the special election to succeed him in the spring of 1984. He lost the primary to state senator
Jerry Kleczka—another popular Polish Catholic from Milwaukee's south side.
Federal judicial service 's
Federal Building In 1997, Adelman chose to apply for appointment as
U.S. district judge in the
Eastern District of Wisconsin to fill the vacancy created when district judge
Thomas John Curran took
senior status at the beginning of that year. He was one of nineteen applicants, which included nine other state judges, two U.S. magistrate judges, and prominent state attorneys, including
Maxine Aldridge White,
Joan F. Kessler, and the then-chairman of the
Democratic Party of Wisconsin Mark Sostarich. Adelman's application rose above the others as state Republicans embraced his candidacy and Republican then-governor
Tommy Thompson wrote a glowing recommendation, describing Adelman as "thoughtful, fair, and open-minded." Newspapers at the time speculated that Republican praise for Adelman was at least partly motivated by their desire to flip his seat in a special election and thereby regain the majority in the state Senate. and received his commission on December 23, 1997. This law made voters of Wisconsin show a state-issued photo ID at the polls before they could vote.
''Johnny Kimble vs Wisconsin's Department of Workforce Development, et al.'' In this case Johnny Kimble sued former Equal Rights Division Secretary
Sheehan Donoghue for not giving him a pay raise based on his race and gender.
Sheehan Donoghue was appointed to this position in 1991 by then governor of Wisconsin
Tommy Thompson. In his opinion, Adelman referenced Wikipedia articles on
Traditionalist Catholic and
Montessori education. His judgment was affirmed by a divided panel of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in October 2018.
United States vs. Sujata Sachdeva In this trial,
Koss Corporation's Chief Financial Advisor Sujata Sachdeva was charged with
embezzling $34 million from the company. The Koss Corporation is a manufacturer of
headphones. The case received a rush of national attention as Democrats and legal experts denounced the arrest as an assault on the independence of the judiciary and an attempt by the
Donald Trump administration to intimidate political opponents. Dugan's attorneys moved to dismiss the case on the basis of judicial immunity, official acts, and the Tenth Amendment. They wrote "The government's prosecution of Judge Dugan is virtually unprecedented and entirely unconstitutional". On August 26, 2025 Adelman ruled against Dugan, stating "There is no basis for granting immunity simply because some of the allegations in the indictment describe conduct that could be considered 'part of a judge's job'" and that Dugan "went well beyond her judicial role." After Dugan was convicted by the jury, Adelman denied her motions for acquittal and/or a new trial.
Federal lawsuits against Joseph Mensah Adelman has presided over three separate
civil trial lawsuits against former Milwaukee Police Department officer Joseph Mensah involving three people who Mensah shot to death, including
Estate Of Antonio Gonzalez v. Joseph Anthony Mensah et al.,
Estate of Jay Anderson Jr., et al v. Joseph Anthony Mensah et al., and
Estate of Alvin Cole et al. v. Joseph Anthony Mensah et al. As of September 2025, Adelman has dismissed the lawsuits against Mensah of the deaths of Gonzalez and Anderson, but has allowed the lawsuit against Mensah for the death of Cole to continue. The article specifically cited a number of partisan 5–4 decisions, such as
Shelby County v. Holder, (which struck down part of the
Voting Rights Act of 1965),
Rucho v. Common Cause, (which decided that federal courts could not rule on cases of
gerrymandering),
Citizens United v. FEC, (which allowed unlimited corporate spending on elections), and
Janus v. AFSCME (which held that it was unconstitutional for public employee
unions to require
collective bargaining fees). The article created waves in legal circles because of the unusually blunt criticism of the Court coming from a sitting federal judge. Legal scholar
Jonathan Turley argued that the article makes "a better case of bias against himself than he does Chief Justice John Roberts" and noted previous articles where Adelman had also directly criticized conservatives while serving as a federal judge. The Judicial Council for the Seventh Circuit censured Judge Adelman for writing this article.
Consideration for Seventh Circuit On January 22, 2010, United States Senators
Herb Kohl and
Russ Feingold forwarded four names to the
Obama White House for consideration to fill the vacancy on the
United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit created when Judge
Terence T. Evans assumed
senior status. Adelman was recommended along with
Victoria F. Nourse, Richard Sankovitz and Dean Strang, but was not selected for the spot. ==Personal life and family==