Getting to know him, still

Daniel Conley, Suffolk district attorney, remains, after seven years, a political misfit in a job that traditionally has been inhabited by players in Boston's notoriously cliquish political club

Mayor Thomas M. Menino offers this endorsement of Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley: He's doing "fairly well."

Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis, with whom Conley once clashed publicly and angrily, says they have learned to get along.

And the rank and file? "I'm not going to sugar-coat it," said Boston Police Patrolmen's Association President Thomas J. Nee. "It's just a professional relationship."

Seven years after Conley was appointed district attorney by a Republican governor, the moderate Democrat remains a political misfit in a job that has been traditionally inhabited by players in Boston's notoriously cliquish political club. He maintains few allegiances, carries the baggage of old grudges, and operates largely outside the city's backslapping political establishment.

Conley's predecessor, Ralph C. Martin II, was a charismatic leader who shared the national limelight for the "Boston Miracle" and who, more than six years after he left the office for a private law practice, was being nudged by Boston business leaders to challenge Menino in a run for mayor. He declined, but his legacy has cast a long shadow.

"Ralph was such a big persona that following him was very difficult," said Jim Borghesani, Martin's former spokesman. "With Dan, I think it was like Truman following FDR. But history has been kind to Truman."

The pewter-haired, serious-minded Conley, 50, is a quieter political animal than many. But lawyers and judges say his independence has served him well in his role as the top law enforcement official for Boston, Chelsea, Winthrop, and Revere. Last month, Conley released his findings clearing Boston police of charges in the post-arrest death of 22-year-old Emmanuel College student David Woodman.

Though some members of the public questioned the decision - Conley has come down on the side of police in eight out of eight death investigations - the police did not, praising Conley for standing up to public pressure with what he believed to be the truth.

"He did not roll on that. In the face of all of that scrutiny, he still ruled on a side of facts," said Nee.

In 2006, Conley pressed legislators who had already offered money for witness protection efforts to go further by stiffening penalties for witness intimidation. Some saw it as a bold push against resistant legislators who could influence funding to his office.

"I think there was pressure on him to back off or compromise more, and he continued to stay on it," said Lew Finfer, director of the Massachusetts Communities Action Network. "He showed some political courage in standing up for something that was right at some risk."

Conley was independent on the City Council, too, serving from 1993 to 2002 in the Hyde Park district seat Menino left when he became mayor. There, Conley was known as a bright, straight arrow and a rules-minded councilor who did not align neatly with small groups of allies.

As chairman of the Public Safety Committee, he fielded criticism for antagonizing police officials. And he was perceived as unpredictable by some colleagues who said that on two occasions he broke promises to throw his support behind candidates for council president in elections typically accompanied by flurries of deal-making.

Conley was appointed to finish Martin's term as district attorney in February 2002 by Acting Governor Jane M. Swift, a Republican - a fact that made Conley suspect to liberal constituencies and ripe for attack by competitors. Boston police embraced his rival, the affable and more liberal City Councilor Brian Honan. But Honan died unexpectedly during the campaign and Conley, after winning office, still had to win the respect of skeptics.

"My sense of Dan is that he's really grown in this office - perhaps to everyone's surprise," said Tom Keane, who served with Conley on the City Council. After the 2002 election, Keane said, "He did probably the right thing, which is that he just pulled his head underground a bit and stuck to his job and tried to let the whole thing cool down. And he's done so quite effectively. His reputation now is rehabilitated."

As district attorney, Conley has made some changes perceived as liberal that surprised those who remember him as a moderate. He helped form a Family Justice Center - now run by the city's Public Health Commission - a brightly painted, refurbished school building where victims of sexual, domestic or child abuse can get help from police, prosecutors and social workers under one roof. Last year, Conley won the Boston Bar Association's "Distinguished Public Servant Award" not for pursuing convictions but for reversing wrongful convictions by his predecessors in the district attorney's office.

"I think they had me wrong," said Conley of those who viewed him as a closet conservative. "A lot of the people who maybe had opinions didn't know me, had never tried a case with me. I think that by and large, I had a good reputation for honesty and fairness and decency."

In 2006, Conley created a gun court to alleviate a backlog of cases in Boston's busiest courts. He also empanelled a special grand jury to focus on homicides and complex gun- and gang-related cases and to use subpoena powers to compel reluctant witnesses to testify.

And he has listened to community leaders and embraced their ideas, said the Rev. Jeffrey Brown, a founder of the TenPoint Coalition who credits Conley with keeping in touch and working on the relationship between the community and authorities. "It's not a marriage of convenience, if you will, between the DA and the community," he said. "It is a real solid relationship that has strengthened over the years and it's been consistent."

Still, Conley - who grew up playing hockey, the eldest of seven kids - doesn't shy away from a fight. In the summer of 2007, he publicly griped that Davis, the newly named police commissioner, had replaced the head of his police homicide unit without consulting him. Conley lashed back by reclaiming police investigations of homicides on MBTA property. That led Boston police detectives to begin protesting at Conley's events.

"It was clearly a bump in the road we had back in '07 - a disagreement on a substantive matter, I felt," Conley said. "In the end, it was resolved amicably." He said he now has what is essential for investigations - "a shared philosophy" with Davis.

Conley, who has in the past voiced his mayoral ambitions, said he is looking forward to running for reelection next year and continuing to lead the office he joined as a young attorney. "I came in here at 26 years old, left at 35 and came back at 42," said Conley.

"What an honor," he added, "to come back here and lead this office."

Stephanie Ebbert can be reached at ebbert@globe.com.