He was in the United States Navy as a Lieutenant Commander of Naval Intelligence from 1953 to 1957.
He was a law clerk for Judge Ethan Allen Doty of the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1958.
He was a corporation trial counsel for the PMA Insurance Group in Philadelphia from 1958 to 1962.
He was on the faculty advisory board of The Academy of Advocacy at Temple University, from 1989 to 2020.
[3] Reed was nominated by President Ronald Reagan on December 18, 1987, to a seat on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania vacated by Judge Anthony Joseph Scirica.