Jizel Palmer Celebrates 20 Years with Taylor and Walker, P.C.
Jizel Palmer likes to joke that she's been at Taylor and Walker so long, she remembers when "Mr. Walker wore a powdered wig and rode to court on a horse."
Answering a newspaper ad for a subrogation secretary in 1988, Taylor and Walker’s Senior Paralegal was hired instead as a legal secretary for two Taylor and Walker partners due to previous legal experience. Within a year she was promoted to paralegal in the civil litigation section, moving to the workers' compensation section as it began to grow. She worked for 15 years as workers' compensation paralegal for William C. Walker until his retirement in 2005.
A lot has changed in the 20 years since she went to work for the firm. Taylor and Walker had six attorneys, one paralegal, and four secretaries when she began. Although there are now 20 attorneys, 10 paralegals, 12 secretaries, and offices in both Norfolk and Richmond, she observes that the firm still maintains the warm and friendly environment it had when she went to work there. She continues to work in the workers’ compensation section of the firm as Senior Paralegal where she also assists in training new employees.
A high achiever in many areas, she earned two black belts in Karate and is currently finishing her Bachelor’s degree in Legal Studies from Kaplan University where she is an honor student with plans to graduate in the summer of 2009. Along the way, she met and married her husband of 12 years, Joe, who retired two years ago after 27 years of service to the Virginia Beach Police Department.
Traveling comes naturally to Jizel. Her Mother is Armenian, born and raised in Istanbul. Her parents met and married in Turkey, where Jizel was born, while her father was in the Navy. They came to the US shortly after her birth and subsequently lived in Japan and Germany. Jizel and her husband have traveled throughout the Caribbean and fell in love with a small Caribbean island, purchased a piece of property there, and built a vacation home which they visit twice a year.
