Sara-Jean Palmer, Private Law Practice

Sara-Jean Palmer is an appellate attorney. She began her legal career in 1988 as a member of the Alabama State Bar and has been a licensed member of the Florida Bar since 1990. Sara-Jean originally hails from upstate New York, where she grew up in a closely-knit family in a suburb of Syracuse. She has called Lakeland home since May 1990.

Ms. Palmer holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from C.W. Post College of Long Island University in Brookville, New York, which is located on the North Shore of Long Island, just outside of Manhattan. She received her Juris Doctor in 1987 from Cumberland School of Law of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, where she was a member of the Cumberland Research Board and consistently made the Dean's List.

Sara-Jean worked her way through law school with part-time employment for Cumberland Torts Professor, Edward C. Martin, assisting him in his research on premises liability for a treatise he was commissioned to write. Ms. Palmer also worked in the law school library and the Jefferson County Law Library, assisting law students, private attorneys, pro se litigants and members of the public in their legal research.

Shortly after graduating from Cumberland, Attorney Palmer served as a law clerk for two years for the Honorable Clifford E. Sanders, who was then the Chief Judge of the Tennessee (Civil) Court of Appeals (Eastern Division) in Knoxville. In December 1990, Ms. Palmer became a staff attorney for Judge Vincent T. Hall of the Florida Second District Court of Appeal until his retirement. Thereafter she served as a Career Staff Attorney for Appellate Judge Edward F. Threadgill, also of the Florida Second District Court of Appeal, until his retirement, and she remained with the court thereafter until January 2003. She has now entered private practice. Attorney Palmer concentrates her practice in appellate law and litigation support in all substantive areas of the law.