[1] Stephens graduated as valedictorian of his class at Beechwood High School in Fort Thomas, Kentucky, in 1945.
[9] When the case was assigned to one of Stephens' former political opponents, his lawyer, State Senator Michael Maloney, withdrew the divorce petition and re-filed it the next day.
[3] He also oversaw the planning of the Lexington Civic Center and created the Bluegrass Area Development District, serving as its first chair in 1971.
[3] Stephens considered running for mayor of Lexington, but Governor Julian Carroll advised him against it, and he decided not to enter the race.
[1] In 1975, Stephens defeated David van Horn in the Democratic primary for Attorney General of Kentucky.
[3] In November 1979, a month before his term as attorney general expired, Stephens was appointed by Governor Carroll to fill a vacancy on the Kentucky Supreme Court caused by the resignation of Scott Elgin Reed.
[16][17] The following year, he was chosen in a special election to fill the remainder of Reed's unexpired term, defeating N. Mitchell Meade.
[12][18] Lexington lawyer Julian Reid Gabbard challenged Stephens for his seat representing the 5th Appellate District in the 1984 election.
[27] He also advocated reforms by the Kentucky Bar Association to increase transparency in cases of discipline against lawyers.
[29] In July 1997, Stephens was in the minority in a 5–2 decision against Harold McQueen Jr., who sought a stay of execution in the electric chair on grounds that it constituted cruel and unusual punishment.
[27] He was instrumental in securing Ishmon F. Burks Jr.'s appointment as the first African-American commissioner of the Kentucky State Police in August 2000.
[3] In 1984, Stephens received the American Judicature Society's Herbert Harley Award, in part for his work in making continuing legal education mandatory for judges in Kentucky.
[31] Just before the expiration of her term in December 1987, Governor Martha Layne Collins appointed Stephens to a seat on the University of Kentucky Board of Trustees.
[32] Before assuming the position, Stephens requested a non-binding opinion from the Ethics Committee of the Kentucky Judiciary on the legality of his simultaneously serving as a Supreme Court Justice and a university trustee.
[33] His term expired in 1992, and then-Governor Brereton Jones refused to re-appoint him, along with two other state court judges who sat on other university boards, because he felt there was too much potential for conflicts of interest.
[39] The Robert F. Stephens Justice Center, which opened in 2001, houses the district and circuit courts for Fayette County.