He was law secretary for Judge Charles Evans Hughes of the Permanent Court of International Justice in The Hague, Netherlands in 1929.

He was an Assistant United States Attorney of the Southern District of New York from 1931 to 1934.

He was law secretary for Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia in New York City from 1937 to 1940.

Palmieri served in that capacity until his death on June 15, 1989, in New York City.

[2] During Palmieri's service on the bench, one of his law clerks was Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who worked for him after her 1959 graduation from Columbia Law School and later served as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.