Major Gains

In the world of competitive powerlifting, the top prizes go to the competitor who can handle the most weight while performing three lifts: squat, deadlift and bench press. But it takes more than muscles to come out on top.

“Everybody’s strong,” says personal injury lawyer Armand Leonelli, the CEO of Edgar Snyder & Associates in Pittsburgh, of his competition. 

So he takes a similar approach as he does in the courtroom, where he knows he’ll be facing off against someone who is “equally, quote-unquote, smart. What wins is: Are you more disciplined than them? Are you a better strategist than them? Do you know your case better than they know their case?

“Powerlifting is the exact same thing, but it’s: Who had the best diet? Who put in the most hours in the gym? Who had the best game plan going into the competition? I think that that’s analogous to almost everything in life. It’s like that old adage: How you do something is how you do everything.”

Where you start matters, too. Leonelli grew up in Uniontown, a city of fewer than 10,000 in Western Pennsylvania that flourished at first and has struggled ever since. At different times, his father worked as a coal miner and a steel worker. The family put an emphasis on education, hard work and helping others. 

Growing up, he never crossed paths with anyone in the legal profession. After earning a bachelor’s degree from Seton Hill University in 2006, Leonelli soon faced a slow-moving economy and a housing crisis. 

“I didn’t like my job options, and I thought law school seemed like a good idea,” says Leonelli. “I have the right mindset for it. I’m a very analytical person, very disciplined, and the rest is history.”

After graduating with his law degree from Duquesne University, Leonelli clerked at a boutique before joining Edgar Snyder in 2011. He wasn’t set on personal injury law when he started his job search, but it was a good fit. 

“I wanted to be around clients that were, you know, regular people. It’s like I’m just talking to a family member or the people that I grew up with. I’m not in a boardroom. I’m dealing with people who know I’m just like them. I just happen to have a law degree,” he says. “I also like the kind of hustle and caring type of personality that injury lawyers have.”

In 2018, Leonelli became a partner. By 2023, he also had an ownership stake in the firm and was chosen to be CEO. It’s not lost on him that, when he joined the firm, it had a policy forbidding visible tattoos and facial hair. “Now I’m CEO and I’m heavily tattooed and I have a beard,” he laughs.

Powerlifting is also something he found along the way. Leonelli has been athletic since childhood. Soccer was his game: Over the years he played, coached and refereed. 

As an adult, he hit the gym regularly. About a decade ago, another gym-goer approached him and said, “You’re really strong. Why don’t you try powerlifting?”

 “I sort of tiptoed into it. I went to a couple small events to expose myself to it,” he says. “It seemed a bit weird. I have to go up on stage in front of people and lift weights?”

A brief primer on the sport: It’s not the same as bodybuilding or weightlifting. The former focuses on a competitor’s physique, with competitors striking specific poses so judges can evaluate their bodies. With the latter, success is based on two lifts (the snatch and the clean-and-jerk) with heavy weights that are done quickly and with good form.  

In powerlifting’s simplest form, “it’s who can lift the most weight within the divisions,” Leonelli says, adding that divisions are similar to boxing in that they separate by weight class, gender and more. Competitors get three tries in each of the three categories.

And you do it all while wearing a spandex singlet. “Putting one on is something that requires a certain level of courage,” he says. “It’s like that saying, ‘If something scares you, you probably should do it,’ because then you’ll grow. It’s the same with walking into a courtroom. It’s a scary thing the first time you do it, and then after it gets a little bit easier.”

Once Leonelli put his mind to it, he made steady gains. When he started training for competitions, he could squat 225 pounds, bench press 185 and deadlift about 200. His highest lifts to date are 550 (squat), 420 (bench press) and 602 (deadlift). His competitive successes include winning the 2020 IPA Pennsylvania State Powerlifting Championships held at the Weightlifting Hall of Fame in York.

“It’s like any other sport. You’re always competing against yourself,” he says. “So you start prep with a realistic reach goal. Based on that number, you set a reasonable ideal, and all your training is based on that. … You set your goal, your diet and training, your mindset, and your purpose of competing. Do you want to set records, do you want to win, or are you doing it for the first time and want to not look terrible?

“That competitive spirit in me needed an outlet,” Leonelli adds. “It was a way to expend my competitive athleticism.”

He’s brought his firm along for the ride, too. Edgar Snyder sponsors multiple local events, including powerlifting competitions. Leonelli recently worked with the Special Olympics powerlifting team.

“That’s just what we do a lot of as injury lawyers,” Leonelli says. “We help people.”