Payo, Rebecca

Mr. Conover regularly represents lawyers, law firms and legal departments throughout Connecticut in grievance defense matters.  He actively advises local and national law firms on malpractice prevention and risk management, and counsels clients on sensitive ethics, professional responsibility, and business matters.

In 2007, Mr. Conover completed 11 years of service as Court-appointed Grievance Counsel involved with the State's lawyer disciplinary/grievance process in administrative and judicial proceedings.  Mr. Conover now regularly defends lawyers facing sanctions from formal Grievance Complaints filed with Connecticut’s Statewide Grievance Committee. In addition, Mr Conover provides guidance to lawyers and law firms in their management of partnership agreements, departures, lateral hires, dissolutions, licensing, and ethics compliance.

Mr. Conover is an experienced neutral arbitrator trained by the American Arbitration Association and is regularly selected to decide complex commercial & construction disputes.  Mr. Conover is also a neutral mediator and was trained (40 hours) at the University of Connecticut and Quinnipiac University Law School Center for Dispute Resolution.  Since 1996, Mr. Conover has served by appointment as a Special Master mediating civil cases each month in the State Superior Court in Stamford.

Mr. Conover has a long history of leadership in the state and local bar, including his election as a Board Member (1993-2003) and as President (2003-2004) of the Fairfield County Bar Association.  Mr. Conover is active in the Connecticut Bar Association as an elected member of its Board of Governors, and as a member of the Professional Ethics Committee, Profession Discipline Committee, and the Standing Committee on Professionalism.  Mr. Conover is an appointed member of the CBA Leadership Academy Group (charged with development and administration of the curriculum of the Bar Leadership Institute) and the CBA Task Force on the Unauthorized Practice of Law (charged with evaluation and implementation of enforcement mechanisms to address UPL).  Mr. Conover is an active member of the National Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers. 

Mr. Conover is a frequent speaker for the Fairfield County Bar Association, the Bridgeport Bar Association, and the Connecticut Bar Association on the topics of professionalism, ethics, grievance defense and lawyer discipline.

Mr. Conover was admitted to practice in Connecticut in 1982, and since his admission has maintained an active trial practice representing clients in commercial & construction disputes in Connecticut’s State and Federal Courts and in arbitration, mediation, and administrative hearings before Boards, Committees, and Commissions throughout the State.