Heather M. Palmore

Especially in these challenging times, where the legal profession has been called upon to address critical, life-altering issues in our community, I understand first-hand, as an African American woman, the need for communities to not only feel empowered, but are in fact, truly empowered to make identifiable, tangible change. It is recognizing that only working collaboratively, with our peers in this industry, with a shared purpose, that true justice is achieved, not only in our communities, but our profession.

Ms. Palmore was born in Rockville Centre, Long Island, New York and was raised in Amityville and attended Malverne Public Schools. She is a graduate of Cornell University where she was a member of the Cornell Women’s Basketball team and was initiated into the Mu Upsilon chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. At Cornell, she discovered her passion for advocacy when she was awarded the Elsie Van Buren Award, Cornell University’s highest honor for speech and advocacy, and received that distinction for two consecutive years. She was also a member of Cornell University’s award winning Forensics Club, which participated throughout the country in the field of speech and debate. While earning a Bachelor of Science degree, with Honors, in Policy Analysis and Consumer Economics and Housing, she was also selected as a Ford-Mellon Foundation Scholar to Yale University, in which she studied under Dr. Jessie Geller, the reliability of child eyewitness testimony in legal proceedings. It was from these combined experiences, that she decided to pursue a career in law.

Immediately upon graduation from Cornell, Palmore enrolled in Syracuse University’s College of Law. At Syracuse, in her third year of law school, she made history at the College of Law by being selected as the first African American Teaching Assistant to teach first year law students both writing and oral advocacy skills with her own law section. In 1995, Heather graduated from Syracuse University’s College of Law with distinction. She was the Executive Director of the award  winning  Moot  Court  program  and  lead  the  school  to  a  national championship in Dallas, Texas.

After graduation, Heather entered public service and was appointed as an Assistant to the District Attorney of Queens County, by the late Honorable Richard A. Brown.  During this time, Palmore worked s an Assistant District Attorney, where  she  led  the  entire  office  in  trial  and  convictions  for  two  consecutive years. She  worked  on  trials  in  the  areas  of homicide, sexual  assault, narcotics, and other major crimes.   During this time, she was featured as a panelist on Dateline NBC with respect to race and perceptions in the field of criminal law following the Amadou Diallo shooting in New York City.

In 2000, she joined a Manhattan law firm as a Trial Attorney. In 2007, Heather was elected Partner, becoming the first African- American female elected Partner at the firm and becoming the only woman of color to be named partner in the firm’s 60 year history. She was the “go-to” attorney on the firms high exposure cases, including premises, wrongful death, construction/labor law, education law and other related matters. During her tenure Palmore tried over 50 cases to verdict, all resulting in the favor of her clients.

Palmore has also worked at national insurance companies as a Senior Trial Attorney, where she continued to litigate high exposure cases, on behalf  of  her  clients. From  2017-2019, she served  as  Chair  of  the  African American Employee Network, a national position for a multi-billion dollar, Fortune 500 company. Based in Chicago, Illinois she specialized in high exposure premises, wrongful death, construction/labor law and other related practice areas.

Most recently she was a Partner at a Miami, Florida-based law firm with the largest minority and women owned law firm in the United States.