About
Navigant Law Group is a certified woman-owned law firm that provides legal services in business law, wills, trusts, and estate administration.
Mildred “Millie” Palmer leads the Estate Planning and Administration Department at Navigant Law Group, LLC. Millie’s practice is divided into four areas: Estate planning, Wills and Trusts, Probate, and Estate and Trust Administration. By bringing her personal commitment to service and excellence to each client, Millie helps individuals not only identify and meet their objectives, but to position themselves to surpass their future goals.
Millie’s philosophy is to provide services that are both in-depth and reasonably priced, based on individual goals and personal reasoning. This practice utilizes her classic tax law training, big firm work ethic, and her passion to practice law in a positive way. Millie is honored to help real people make meaningful decisions regarding their business and their futures.
Millie graduated Cum Laude from University of Florida’s College of Law in 1990 where she earned American Jurisprudence Awards in Civil Procedure and Evidence and in Estate Planning, and where she was awarded an honorary teaching fellowship for her work with first year students in Contract Law. After graduation she went to work for Ernst & Young as the first hire following the firm’s merger. Millie worked as a tax attorney in the Special Services Corp, but also as a tax adviser concentrating on reorganization matters. During this time, she also attended LLM classes at Chicago Kent. In 1992, she moved from Ernst & Young to Gardner Carton & Douglas where she practiced tax law. As a tax attorney attached to a large firm, Millie saw a wide variety of work in the area of taxation, charitable giving, corporate work and estate planning. During this time, she served as the ABA YLD Tax Law Chair and a CNN Tax Law Correspondent.
Although her work at both Ernst & Young and at Gardner Carton & Douglas was educational and interesting, Millie was determined to challenge herself again and practice law from a different perspective. In the summer of 1998, she left Gardner Carton & Douglas to open her own firm. She practiced on her own for the next ten years.
In early 2008, Millie formed Waltz, Palmer & Dawson, LLC with two other attorneys, Nichole M. Waltz, and Susan L. Dawson. The attorneys created WPD in response to the growing demand for reasonably priced, highly personalized legal services both inside and outside of the City of Chicago. The attorneys of WPD combined their years of experience and knowledge to better serve their individual practice areas and to increase the services available to our client base. Since forming WPD in 2008, the firm has increased in size and scope and has continued to grow beyond expectation.
Millie is also known for her volunteerism and is a member of the District 214 School Board of Education and a board member of the Arlington Heights Rotary, Noon Club. She is a founding board member of the Michael J. de Zonna Foundation and a charter member of the Northwest Community Health Care Friends Advisory Council on Estate and Gift Planning. Over the years, she has been involved in a variety of school and youth related activities in Arlington Heights, IL such as Rolling Meadows High School Football, Orchesis and Athletic Boosters. She has served as the Arlington Cowboys Youth Athletics Director of Cheerleading and coached for 14 years. As a mother of four active children, and as a local business owner, Millie feels the need to stay in touch with her community.
