Let the leaves be, all of the photosynthesis takes place in the leaves, the more leaves you have the healthier and less stressed the plant will be. and a healthy unstressed plant seems to produce more potent and larger buds. I only have three complete grows under my belt, so dont take this as gospel. But just from my experience as a gardner in general, unless the leaves are directly above a developing bud site (from the sounds of it your still vegging) dont touch em. Once you start popping flowers, carefully trim the parts of the leaf that is shading the bud site trying to leave as much of the leaf intact.
I grow indoors and prefer smaller bushier plants, and as was mentioned in the post above, if you pinch and slightly bend the tops of your plants, they do tend to bush out more.