Written By: Jacob Riederer
Edward Melvin’s career reflects a commitment to the fundamentals of a successful legal practice: research, writing, and statutory analysis, approached with intellectual curiosity and a strong work ethic. Now a partner at Barclay Damon LLP, he has carried those skills from law school through a federal clerkship, and into a career in employment law. Melvin, who has been known as “Buster” for his entire life, graduated from Syracuse Law in 1996.
Before law school, Melvin’s passion for employment law first emerged while he was an undergrad studying history at the College of the Holy Cross. That interest deepened during his junior year, when he spent a semester interning in Washington, D.C. While there, Melvin researched and wrote a capstone paper on the Civil Rights Act of 1991, legislation that significantly strengthened employment discrimination law. His award-winning paper not only focused on the statute itself, but also on the debate surrounding its passage, including how the bill was framed and how national events shaped the broader political conversation. As part of the research process, Melvin personally interviewed former Congressman John Lewis, a legend in the civil rights movement. Looking back, Melvin credits the project as an early point at which his interest in employment law began to take shape.
When deciding where to attend law school after earning his bachelor’s degree, Melvin drew in part on a childhood connection to Syracuse. Although he grew up primarily in Connecticut, he spent a couple of years living in Syracuse with his father, who served as superintendent of schools for the nearby Liverpool School District. During that time, Melvin became familiar with and fond of Syracuse’s traditions and history, including going to a football game in old Archbold Stadium, basketball games in Manley Fieldhouse, and the first football game at the Carrier Dome in 1980.
At Syracuse Law, Melvin served as an Executive Editor on Law Review. He recalls long hours spent in a cramped basement in the old law school, where he worked closely with fellow editors while honing his writing and editing skills. In addition to Law Review, Melvin was also involved with The Labor Lawyer, a national ABA publication edited at the time by Professor Robert J. Rabin. As a student editor, he worked with a small editorial board to review and edit articles that were distributed nationwide.
After graduating from Syracuse Law, he clerked for Judge Frederick J. Scullin Jr. in the Northern District of New York alongside several former Law Review colleagues, which included Alessio Evangelista (’95), Karen Deeley Abbott (’95), and John Powers (’96). Melvin credits the experience with improving his writing skills (including through the example of Judge Scullin) and giving him important insight into the “nuts and bolts” of the judicial process by observing and working on cases at each stage, from motions to dismiss, discovery, summary judgment, and trial. By the time he entered private practice, he already had a strong sense of how cases move through the court and how arguments are evaluated at each stage of the judicial process.
His first position after his clerkship was with the Syracuse firm Costello, Cooney & Fearon, PLLC, where he practiced labor and employment law. Reflecting on the experience, he’s thankful to his mentors at the firm, Mike Tremont and John Langey, for giving him substantial responsibility early in his career. Within his first few years as an associate, he took depositions, conducted discovery, drafted motions, and argued in federal court, including at the Second Circuit. The firm’s client base included hospitals, municipalities, and other institutional clients, which exposed him to a wide range of employment and labor matters. He worked on discrimination cases, wage-and-hour disputes, and labor arbitrations, experiences that allowed him to develop as a practitioner and build his confidence early on. He later became a partner at the firm.
In 2014, he joined his current firm, Barclay Damon LLP, after being recruited in part to support a growing higher education practice. Named chair of the firm’s higher education practice in 2016, he later became co-chair of the practice group in 2023 following the return of former Syracuse University General Counsel Dan French to the firm. In this role, his work has expanded beyond traditional employment disputes to include day-to-day counselling, Title IX and faculty/staff investigations and litigation, and other matters affecting colleges and universities.
While he continues to serve as co-chair of the firm’s higher education practice group, his individual practice is primarily focused on employment law. This work often involves counselling employers on day-to-day matters such as wage-and-hour issues, employee discipline and terminations, harassment and discrimination, and employment contracts, as well as representing clients in investigations and litigation before the New York State Division of Human Rights, the EEOC, and state and federal Departments of Labor. Further, he regularly represents litigates employment matters in state and federal court.
When asked why employment law has remained his primary interest and area of practice throughout his career, aside from the satisfaction of assisting employers with resolving employee issues and disputes (in cases often having very interesting fact patterns), Melvin emphasized the intellectually demanding nature of the field. Employment cases frequently hinge on statutory interpretation, requiring careful research and the development of precise, often complex arguments grounded in the courts’ application of evolving legal standards. For students interested in employment law, Melvin emphasized the fundamentals: strong research and writing skills, careful statutory analysis, and an understanding of how cases are litigated. Journals and clerkships, he explained, are particularly useful for developing these skills. Not surprisingly, this focus on fundamentals has remained a constant throughout Melvin’s entire career.