&
Ann of
All Trades
Over the course of her 27-year career,
from construction to employment to insurance
to lobbying law, Ann Maloney Conway of
Keleher & McLeod in Albuquerque has loved
anything that gets her into the courtroom
INTERVIEW CONDUCTED AND EDITED BY ROSS PFUND
PHOTOGRAPHY BY KIP MALONE
Q: You’ve studied all over the country:
Notre Dame, the University of Puget
Sound, and Eastern New Mexico
University. Is there a story there?
A: I’m a native New Mexican. My father
was in the second world war, and when
he came back, he had just started
practicing law when he became ill with
multiple sclerosis. There was a hospital in
Washington where my grandmother took
him for care. So when I was looking at
schools, we had just happened to be going
to Tacoma to visit a couple of the nuns who
had taken care of him 25 years before. I
looked at that school and fell in love with
the Pacific Northwest.
Q: Was it the family connection that first
got you interested in law?
A: My father was one of Albuquerque’s
very first municipal judges. He did that
for about nine years or so. Then he was
state attorney general in the late ’60s.
That’s where I picked up my love of
public service and politics that got me
involved in the Legislature once I became
a lawyer. He went on the state court
trial bench—the district court in New
Mexico. He was on that for 17 years, until
he retired. That’s what not only inspired
me to become a lawyer, but to get in the
courtroom and try cases.
He used to take me to the courthouse,
to his chambers, and I just loved his
friends and colleagues, the judges and the
lawyers. Albuquerque was still a pretty
small town, and I had a lot of exposure to
the really good lawyers in New Mexico.
Q: Do you ever think about following in
his footsteps and becoming a judge?
A: With the twists and turns in my career,
the opportunity hasn’t ever presented
itself, but certainly I hold people who
do become judges in high esteem. It’s
interesting, but it’s not something I’ve
actively pursued. I still love what I do.
