Sometimes, executives work at a company because the position they hold is a good match for their skillset.

Other times, the position might be a good match for their skillset, but more importantly, the mission of the company is aligned with their personal mission and their view of the world.

You can count Bryan Reilly, Chief Financial Officer of Pond Lehocky Giordano, firmly in that second camp.

Bryan’s path to serving as CFO of a law firm dedicated to helping its injured and disabled clients, many of whom are union workers, get justice and secure the benefits they’re entitled to, began when he was a child growing up with a union carpenter father and other union family members.

This includes his grandfather, a SEPTA bus driver, who suffered a work injury and successfully settled his workers’ compensation case regarding it but dealt with lingering pain from that injury for much of his life.

The road to Pond Lehocky Giordano

Bryan was born in Northeast Philadelphia but grew up mostly in the Bucks County suburbs. That’s because at a young age, his father and high school secretary mother moved him and his brother to the ‘burbs. His father drove an hour and a half each way to work every day so that Bryan and his family could live in a bigger house on a tranquil suburban street.

After Bryan’s freshman and sophomore years at the University of Pittsburgh, he interned at the law firm where Sam Pond, Jerry Lehocky, and Tom Giordano met before branching out on their own to launch Pond Lehocky Giordano. The opportunity to intern there came from a chance meeting Bryan had with Sam on a New Jersey beach when Bryan was a senior in high school. Bryan had stayed in touch with Sam after meeting him on the beach that summer day.

Interning at that firm, Bryan saw how workers’ compensation and disability lawyers can change the lives of injured workers—people like his grandfather—by helping them secure benefits so they can support their families even when they are unable to work.

After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh in 2009 with a major in finance and a minor in economics, Bryan worked at blue chip financial services companies like Edward Jones, Merrill Lynch, and Northwestern Mutual. But Bryan longed to work at a company that made a real difference in people’s lives—and where he could make a difference in helping that company grow strategically.

He reconnected with Sam and Tom in 2010, and learned that Sam, Jerry, and Tom would be launching Pond Lehocky Giordano on July 1, 2010. Bryan accepted a position as a staff accountant at the firm and began working at the firm in its second week of existence.

Positioning Pond Lehocky Giordano for continued growth

Bryan rose through the accounting ranks at Pond Lehocky Giordano, eventually becoming CFO in January 2013. Today, Bryan advises the firm’s founding partners and executive team on their strategic planning, but with a financial tilt.

To do so, Bryan works closely with data, statistics, and models to determine whether strategic initiatives that Pond Lehocky Giordano is considering offer it the right risk/reward balance. He also builds financial roadmaps for the initiatives that offer that balance so the firm can budget for them accordingly. Additionally, Bryan manages the firm’s accounting, finance, banking, and investment functions. He also serves as treasurer of the firm’s charitable arm, Pond Lehocky Foundation, and its political action committee, Pennsylvanians for the Disabled.

Bryan might work in the rational, cut-and-dry world of numbers, but his work is personal to him.

Having grown up in a family full of union workers, Bryan knows how much pride workers—union or not—take in being able to provide for their families. As CFO of the largest workers’ compensation and disability law firm in Pennsylvania and one of the largest in the U.S., Bryan also knows how ruthless employers and insurance companies can be in preventing injured workers from collecting the workers’ compensation benefits they’re legally entitled to.

That’s why Bryan is driven to ensure Pond Lehocky Giordano continues to have the sound financial footing necessary for it to expand its efforts to continue fighting for society’s injured and disabled, and help as many clients as possible secure the justice they deserve.