Before joining Reed Smith Ed had an estate administration and commercial transaction practice in Pittsburgh and he spent the dot-com years of the mid-late 1990s as a consultant for Lexis-Nexis. Prior to this, Ed worked for fourteen years for the Westinghouse Electric Corp., first as a Sr. Mechanical Engineer designing piping and process control systems and after graduation from law school, as Senior Contract Advisor for agreements between Westinghouse and its electric utility and government customers.

Ed served on the Construction Legislative Counsel of Western Pennsylvania and was its chairman from 1999-2000. As a licensed Professional Engineer, Ed was active in the Pittsburgh Chapter of the Pennsylvania Society of Professional Engineers (PSPE), and served as its President in 2001. In 2005, Ed received the L. W. Hornfeck Award for service to the Chapter in recognition of leadership in establishing the continuing education requirement for licensed engineers in Pennsylvania. Most recently, Ed served as a member of the Univ. of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Ethics and Compliance Committee. He is also a frequent guest lecturer at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law on topics related to legal ethics.