Reed earned a Bachelor of Arts from Morehouse College and a Master of Business Administration from Vanderbilt University.

Reed is a member of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity, having been initiated into its Theta Alpha graduate chapter in 1998.

[3] He was a financial analyst, then changed careers and lobbied the Alabama legislature, and worked for Lieutenant Governor Jim Folsom Jr. Reed was elected as probate judge in 2012.

[4] In February 2015, he was the first probate judge in the state of Alabama[5] who started issuing same-sex marriage licenses[4] after district judge Callie V. Granade struck the state's ban on same-sex marriage, defying Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore.

[9] Prior to being sworn in, Reed took part in a prayer service at the historic Dexter Avenue Baptist Church,[9] which gained notoriety at the start of the Civil rights movement for leading the Montgomery bus boycott.