'All that criticism didn't bother me, because I knew that it was working'

To many Pittsburghers, Edgar Snyder is the guy on the billboards.

He’s been on your TV, in your newspapers and at the gate when you walk into PNC Park. The Edgar Snyder and Associates name still hangs above the personal injury law firm’s North Shore office, even if Mr. Snyder isn’t heading the firm these days.

However, before he became associated with personal injury law in Pittsburgh, Mr. Snyder was, in his own words, a pariah. A pioneer of marketing in law, Mr. Snyder demonstrated how risk-taking can lead to massive growth — and a few downfalls.

In 1982, Mr. Snyder gave up criminal law and began his own personal injury firm. A few years earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down an Arizona law that barred attorneys from advertising — a law that would be inconceivable in the modern er