George Conway’s father, an electrical engineer, worked for defense contractor Raytheon. His mother was an organic chemist from the Philippines. He is half-Filipino. Conway grew up outside of Boston and graduated from Marlborough High School in Marlborough, Massachusetts. In 1984, Conway graduated from Harvard College magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in biochemistry, where William A. Haseltine served as his faculty advisor. Three years later, he obtained his Juris Doctor from Yale Law School, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal and president of the school’s chapter of the Federalist Society.

In 1987 and 1988, Conway served as a law clerk to Judge Ralph K. Winter Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In September 1988, Conway joined the law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. He was named a partner of the firm in the Litigation Department in January 1994. His practice focused on litigation involving securities, mergers and acquisitions, contracts, and antitrust.

In the late 1990s, Conway saw Kellyanne Fitzpatrick on the cover of a society magazine. He had known of her from her television appearances, and called Ann Coulter for an introduction. George and Kellyanne married in 2001, and she took his last name. They have four children and live in Washington, D.C. Prior to Trump’s presidency, the family lived in Closter, New Jersey.

On March 29, 2010, Conway argued the securities case of Morrison v. National Australia Bank before the U.S. Supreme Court. Conway won the case, which was decided by an 8–0 vote; the opinion was written by Justice Antonin Scalia.

Conway has been considered for some United States Department of Justice posts. In January 2017, he was considered for the post of Solicitor General. The job eventually went to Noel Francisco. On March 17, 2017, it was reported that he would be nominated to run the United States Department of Justice Civil Division. However, on June 2, 2017, Conway announced that he declined to pursue the post. On November 16, 2018, Conway stated that a reason he did not join the Trump administration was because it is “like a shitshow in a dumpster fire”.

On November 9, 2018, Conway and Neal Katyal wrote an op-ed in the New York Times challenging the constitutionality of Trump’s appointment of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general following the termination of Jeff Sessions. Trump relied on the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 (FVRA), which allows the president to make interim appointments, to appoint Whitaker. Conway and Katyal argued that it was a mistake to try to use the FVRA to override the explicit wording of the Constitution, which requires Senate approval of all appointees who answer directly to the president.

In November 2018, Conway organized a group called Checks and Balances. The group was composed of more than a dozen members of the conservative-libertarian Federalist Society, which had been instrumental in selecting candidates for the Trump administration to appoint to federal courts. The New York Times reported that the group was “urging their fellow conservatives to speak up about what they say are the Trump administration’s betrayals of bedrock legal norms”.

Since 2018, Conway’s stated political positions have often been contrary to those taken by his wife on behalf of the Trump administration. His published legal interpretations of Trump’s actions differ from his wife’s positions, and on Twitter he has been critical of Trump on a personal level. In March 2019, Trump responded to Conway’s attacks by calling him a “stone cold LOSER & husband from hell” on Twitter. Kellyanne defended Trump’s comments in an interview, saying that Trump was “a counterpuncher” and was free to respond when he is attacked.

Conway is a founding member and advisor of the Lincoln Project, a conservative Super PAC formed in December 2019 and dedicated to “Defeat President Trump and Trumpism at the ballot box”. Its detailed aim is “persuading enough disaffected conservatives, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents in swing states and districts to help ensure a victory in the Electoral College, and congressional majorities that don’t enable or abet Mr. Trump’s violations of the Constitution”. The group released its first video on January 9, 2020; called “The MAGA Church”; it warns evangelicals to beware of false prophets. On August 23, 2020, he announced that he would be taking a leave from the Lincoln Project in order to devote more time to his family. Kellyanne Conway, his wife, announced her departure from the White House the same day as well.

Conway’s daughter Claudia Conway came to fame in 2020 for her anti-Trump comments on TikTok. On July 2, Claudia expressed that her father approved of utilizing her right to free speech and voicing her own opinions. On July 3, Conway tweeted a request that all media cease communicating with his daughter. Despite her father being against Trump, in response to her father’s attempted censorship, Claudia tweeted “You’re just mad that I’m finally getting my voice heard. Sorry your marriage failed”. Claudia’s social media accounts were then briefly made private.