Born and raised in Radford, Virginia, Conrad was the son of an elementary school teacher mother and a father who worked in the post office.
[1] Conrad earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the College of William & Mary in 1971, where he wrote his senior thesis on the Republican Party.
Conrad then earned a Juris Doctor from the College of William and Mary's Marshall-Wythe School of Law in 1974.
In February 2017, Conrad found that the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution did not prevent Virginia from criminally prohibiting those it identified as "habitual drunkards" from possessing alcohol.
The city of Charlottesville had attempted to prevent the organizers from holding the rally in Emancipation Park, and instead move them to McIntire Park based on their opinion that the larger space would allow for better separation of the two groups while still allowing for the rally to be held.