Times Union
Albany, NY
Date: December 29, 1996
Section: CAPITAL REGION
Page: C1
Copyright, 1996, (c) Times Union. All Rights Reserved.

CONWAY KEEPS HIS COURT IN GOOD HUMOR

The retired judge, now a judicial hearing officer,
is a gifted storyteller and he's got a million of 'em

By JOHN CAHER
Staff writer

ALBANY — The bard of the courthouse was on a roll. He told the ones about the fat judge, the idiot witness, the duped reporter and the way he rigged the political process to get himself to the state Supreme Court bench. And he shouldn't, wouldn't, couldn't — didn't — leave out the one about the famous defense attorney who came for dinner and stayed for the summer.

But then, some people say the same thing about the avuncular Edward S. "Ned" Conway of Elsmere. Like a favorite uncle on Christmas night, or perhaps more like a pair of old jeans, he just won't go away. Comfortable. Comforting.

Conway, technically retired Supreme Court justice, fixture in the Albany County courthouse, storied storyteller and character extraordinaire, has been opining and even conniving in the halls of justice since 1967. And as he nears his 80th birthday — he was born at 5 a.m. on New Year's Day, 1917, although he says he doesn't clearly remember the event — Conway figures he's good for another decade, or two. Wednesday begins his 30th year on the bench.

"I don't want to retire," Conway says.

No kidding.

Ten years ago, Conway reached the "mandatory" retirement age for state Supreme Court justices. But the judge got a two-year extension. Then he got another two-year extension. And a third, before the state Office of Court Administration took him off the payroll of full-time judges, so he became a "judicial hearing officer," a $250-a-day job where he hears the same type of cases as state Supreme Court justices — civil disputes — but only when the attorneys consent to his presence.

They routinely do.

Lawyers say it gives them an excuse to hang around a friendly courtroom and bask in the never-ending anecdotes.

"I've heard all of his stories, most of them probably a dozen times or more," said Bill McCarthy, who clerked for Conway from 1990 through 1994 and noted that the tales "would typically change just a little bit, depending on the point he was trying to make."

A cherubic, pink-cheeked, rotund man with a moon face, wide-as-pie sparkling eyes and an Irishman's stereotypic gift of gab, Conway was weaned on the law and Celtic pride.

His father, John J. Conway, was a prominent lawyer who represented bootleggers. The elder Conway became famous for defending Lucy Knapp, New York's secretary of state, when she was convicted in the early 1920s of misappropriating funds and sentenced to a day in jail.

"My father went out and sat with her in the cell for the day and his picture was in papers all over the United States," Conway recalled. "Clarence Darrow read the story in Chicago and called my father, because he thought it was a terrific thing to do, and wanted to come out here and talk to him about the case."

Darrow was the legendary criminal defense lawyer of Scopes Monkey Trial fame. "He came and stayed all day and then my father couldn't get rid of him," Conway said. "So he invited him to dinner at our cottage on the Mohawk River. . . . And Clarence stayed for the rest of the summer. We couldn't get rid of him. My mother wanted to get rid of him, but she couldn't. He got very much interested in fishing on the Mohawk River."

Conway was not even 10 years old back then, and for the next 15 years he didn't want anything to do with lawyers. He just wanted to be the big man on campus.

He was president of his eighth-grade class at St. Agnes School in Cohoes, of his freshman class at Cohoes High School and, after his family moved to Albany, of his sophomore, junior and senior classes at Vincentian Institute.

Conway pursued further glory at Union College, but was promptly expelled. That's one story he doesn't like to tell.

"I don't think I want to get into what the hell I was thrown out for, various little things," Conway said.

Conway went to Siena College for a while and transferred to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, planning a career in automotive engineering. He still loves cars and recites the classics he's owned over the years, including a four-doored, side-curtained job in the 1930s.

After three years, the would-be engineer left RPI for a job with a company in Illinois that manufactured tanks for the British army. Following Pearl Harbor, Conway enlisted.

The Navy sent him back to Troy to get his degree and then to midshipman school at Northwestern University in Chicago. He was assigned to a destroyer, whose crew was credited with sinking 19 submarines in the North Atlantic and participated in the invasions of the Philippines and Okinawa. At Okinawa, Conway's ship was sunk by a kamikaze plane.

Back home after the war, Conway enrolled in Albany Law School where, true to form, he was elected class president. In 1950, he joined his father and brother, Robert, in law practice, specializing in labor matters and doing some lobbying. Nine years later he ran for Albany County district attorney as the Republican sacrificial lamb.

"The last thing in the world I wanted was to be D.A.," he said. "I've never had a criminal case in my life."

Conway got trounced, as he knew he would, but he made political ties that led to his election in 1962 as Albany County Republican chairman, a job he took with several goals in mind.

"I wanted to become a Supreme Court judge and that was how you got the nomination," Conway said. "I would have been a Girl Scout if that is what I had to do to become a Supreme Court justice and serve the people."

He readily admits — boasts, almost — of rigging the nominating process to ensure he got the judgeship in 1967 and of tricking a reporter into printing a false story.

But as a judge, Conway doesn't play games. He once forced the state parole board to reveal the reasons it denies someone release, and required the state budget division to open its files to public scrutiny. He ruled that Colonie police illegally seized six X-rated films — including "Deep Throat" and "The Devil in Miss Jones" — from a now closed theater in Latham.

In one of Conway's most important cases, he ruled in 1975 that state legislators could not take stipends in lieu of expenses and ordered lawmakers to refund $800,000 in taxpayer money.

But the more routine cases, the ones that feed Conway's taste for anecdotes, really stand out for him. Like this one:

Conway is presiding over a case involving a woman who supposedly hurt her arm in an accident and was suing the person she claimed caused the accident.

Attorney John Powers comes up with evidence that the woman had been bowling — and bowling very well — with her supposedly ravaged right arm. Powers gets the woman to admit that in a tournament she bowled to a 178 average.

Conway: "Why, that's higher than my average!"

Powers then asks: "Is that a very good average either for a fat judge or a woman?"

Conway reprimands the lawyer: "Come on, Mr. Powers, I will take judicial notice that it is a good average for a fat judge. But she can tell you whether it is a good average for a woman."

And this one:

Local attorney Bob Roche, everybody's court jester, is representing his buddy Paul Devane, another courthouse character.

Devane is suing General Motors over an allegedly defective motor in his Corvette. The opposing attorney, Mike Breslin, now Albany County executive, is firing objections.

"At one point in the trial, Rochie turns to me and says: `Your honor, please, I ask the court to instruct my worthy adversary that he should not be objecting to my learned questions, but should be objecting to the answers I am getting from this idiot client of mine, Mr. Devane,' " Conway chuckles.

"I thought Devane was going to punch him in the mouth."

Eugene Z. Grenz, an Albany attorney who has appeared before Conway for two decades, said the judge has a knack for promoting justice and having a darned good time at it.

"You can define judicial demeanor by reference to Judge Conway, by the manner in which he conducts himself, by the manner in which he conducts his court and by the manner in which he treats people appearing before him," said Grenz.

McCarthy said his former boss, with his warm tales, makes attorneys and litigants feel comfortable and respected. "He was human and approachable. He always had a way of making everyone feel good about what they were doing," he said.

Conway has no plans to slow down.

"I love lawyers," Conway said. "I love to be able to meet with them everyday, tell stories, listen to stories, try to do some good and settle loads of cases."

Copyright, 1996, © Times Union. All Rights Reserved.