Marco A. Palmieri joined Baron & Budd’s Washington, D.C. office as a shareholder in 2025. Mr. Palmieri represents public entity clients in complex litigation matters, including state and local governments in lawsuits to recover damages for those harmed by the opioid crisis. Mr. Palmieri also represents whistleblowers bringing qui tam actions under the False Claims Act (FCA).
Mr. Palmieri is a seasoned trial attorney and litigator who, before joining the firm, served for more than twelve years as a federal prosecutor at the Department of Justice—first at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and then at the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division—where he served as first chair on more than 40 trials and led more than 300 criminal investigations. Most recently, Mr. Palmieri was a Deputy Chief at the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section, where he investigated, tried, and supervised some of the Department’s most sensitive and high-profile matters.
During his time at the DOJ, Mr. Palmieri investigated and prosecuted a wide variety of cases, including fraud, national security, cybercrime, public corruption, and money-laundering matters. Those matters included theft, fraud, and bribery by individual actors, corporate entities, and senior executives, as well as waste, fraud, corruption, and abuse by public and elected officials. Mr. Palmieri also served as a Senior Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Appellate Section at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C., where he handled several appeals to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.
Before joining the Department of Justice, Mr. Palmieri worked at an international law firm in Washington, D.C. where he handled complex commercial litigation and white collar matters on behalf of Fortune 500 companies, including representing a Fortune 100 company in an intervened qui tam False Claims Act litigation, a Fortune 500 company in an investigation concerning the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and a Fortune 500 company in a multidistrict, antitrust litigation.
Mr. Palmieri graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of California at Berkeley where he double-majored in English and Rhetoric, and later received his Juris Doctor, cum laude, from The American University, Washington College of Law, where he served on the American University Law Review, and received the Mussey-Gillett Fellowship and the Marshall-Brennan Fellowship for academic achievement and for public service, respectively.
Mr. Palmieri is a California native and the son of Italian and Mexican immigrants. Prior to law school, he taught an English course to individuals incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison in Northern California. Mr. Palmieri entered law school with the belief, which he still holds today, that the law—while not perfect—can be used as a positive instrument to bring justice and change to where it is needed, and to those who may lack equal access to our judicial and political systems.
When not at work, Mr. Palmieri can be found at a local field coaching any one of his three children’s soccer or baseball teams and planning the next family vacation. In his spare time, Mr. Palmieri enjoys travelling and cooking for his family and friends.
