Palermo Law, P.L.L.C.

Focus on personal injury claims

Personal injury is the one field Palermo Law works in, and the firm has kept that focus since 1994. Steven Palermo started the firm that year, after a motor vehicle accident put him through the insurance claims process as an injured claimant himself. He came out of that experience and built a firm around the side of the case he had just lived. Palermo Law represents injured people across Long Island, in both Suffolk and Nassau Counties, and it works for the person bringing the claim.

The caseload covers motor vehicle accidents of several types: car, truck, motorcycle, bicycle, and pedestrian collisions. Premises liability is a second area, and it takes in slip and fall injuries along with dog bite claims. The firm also handles construction and workplace injuries, workers' compensation, medical malpractice, and wrongful death. That list spans most of the ways a person on Long Island ends up hurt through someone else's conduct.

In my opinion, a single-subject practice like this one tells a prospective client something before the first meeting. The attorneys spend their working days on injury files and the rules that govern them, and that repetition is part of what a claimant is hiring. Palermo Law has stayed with that one type of matter for about three decades, and the range inside it is broad enough to cover most accident claims a resident might bring.

Where the firm keeps offices

Nine offices give the firm a wide reach across both Suffolk and Nassau Counties. The towns are Babylon, Carle Place, East Hampton, Elmont, Hauppauge, Huntington, Mineola, Patchogue, and Riverhead. The main office is in Hauppauge. The office list also hints at which county court a client's case will sit in.

A footprint of this size matters for the people these offices serve. Someone recovering from a serious injury often has trouble traveling far, and a nearby office removes one obstacle during a hard stretch. Personal injury work is local in another sense too: the cases move through Suffolk and Nassau courts, and the lawyers appear before the same judges and insurance adjusters again and again. A firm rooted in those two counties knows that ground, and a client gains from lawyers who work it daily.

The attorneys who handle the cases

Steven Palermo carries the titles of managing partner and trial attorney, and he has represented injured people for more than 25 years. He began his career in criminal defense, then moved his practice fully into personal injury law. He holds a bachelor's degree from Villanova University and a law degree from Touro College School of Law, and he is admitted to the New York State Bar. His cases have run through motor vehicle accidents, catastrophic injuries, premises liability, and wrongful death, and they include the $5.5 million verdict and the $3.2 million recovery the firm cites.

Edward Palermo is the firm's primary trial attorney, and he handles matters in Suffolk and Nassau Counties. Christopher Palermo, who also goes by Chris, has advocated for New Yorkers for more than two decades. Courtney Troyan concentrates on personal injury, and her cases involve motor vehicle accidents, premises liability, and construction accidents. The trial work and the daily case handling are spread across more than one attorney, and that spread means a client's calls are less likely to stall when one lawyer is in a hearing.

Michael Ruggiero is a Long Island native and a Hofstra Law School graduate who is awaiting admission to the New York State Bar. He earned bachelor's and master's degrees at Stony Brook University and graduated cum laude and summa cum laude. Riley Perry is an attorney at the firm who works on personal injury cases. As a reviewer, I read a roster like this as a blend of long-tenured trial lawyers and newer arrivals, a workable shape for a firm that has run since the mid-1990s.

What the record shows

The firm states it has recovered more than $75 million in verdicts and settlements over the course of its history. Two results account for a visible share of that figure: a $5.5 million trial verdict and a $3.2 million recovery. Both appear on Steven Palermo's case record and on the firm's home page.

Numbers like these describe past outcomes and carry no promise about future ones, and a careful reader treats them that way. What they do show is that the firm has taken at least one case to a seven-figure jury verdict and reached a large recovery in another. In my opinion, a stated trial verdict is worth a bit more than a bare settlement total, because it points to a case carried all the way through trial to a jury. That is the harder path, and it signals a willingness to try a case in front of a jury.

The $75 million total covers the firm's full history back to 1994, and it is a sum of many cases across decades of work. For someone comparing firms, a figure built over thirty years reads differently than one claimed over a short span. Palermo Law presents it as a running total across both verdicts and settlements.

How these injury claims generally move

Each practice area the firm names follows its own track through the New York courts, and a short look at those tracks helps set expectations for anyone weighing a claim. Motor vehicle claims in New York begin under the state's no-fault rules, where a driver's own insurer covers initial medical costs, and a suit for pain and suffering moves forward only once an injury meets the serious injury threshold written into state insurance law. That threshold is often the first fight in a car crash case.

Premises liability cases turn on notice. The injured person generally has to show that the property owner knew about a hazard, or should have known about it, and let it stand. Those questions decide a slip and fall claim or a dog bite claim. New York also applies a comparative fault rule, so a jury can assign a share of blame to the injured person and reduce the award by that share. Construction injury cases draw on specific New York Labor Law sections that place safety duties on owners and general contractors, including protection for workers against falls from height.

Malpractice, compensation, and timing

Medical malpractice claims carry added steps in New York. A plaintiff's attorney generally files a certificate of merit confirming that a qualified medical professional reviewed the file and found a reasonable basis for the case. These matters lean on testimony from qualified medical professionals about the standard of care, and they tend to move slowly. An injured patient who suspects a missed diagnosis or a surgical error usually needs those records pulled and read by an outside doctor before anyone can say whether a claim exists. The state also sets time limits on when each type of claim can be filed, and those clocks start early, so an injured person who waits can lose the right to sue.

Workers' compensation runs on a no-fault basis through the state Workers' Compensation Board, which weighs the work injury and the benefits owed. A single accident can open more than one of these tracks at once. A worker hurt in a fall at a job site might have both a workers' compensation claim and a separate injury case against a property owner, and a firm that handles both can keep them aligned. Wrongful death claims sit apart again: the estate of the person who died brings the case, and it seeks the losses the death caused to the family.

Palermo Law lists the practice areas that let it take these overlapping claims for one injured client, and it has done that from offices across Long Island since 1994.