Jamie Harpootlian

Jamie has spent most of her legal career in public service. She served by judicial appointment as a special master on a variety of state and federal mass toxic tort cases to evaluate damages, mediate settlements, resolve fee disputes, and distribute allocations. She brought that experience to the US Department of Justice, Civil Division where she was appointed to serve on the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund. In that capacity, she conducted hearings to assess eligibility and compensation for survivors. Prior to these appointments, she served as a career federal law clerk in the Eastern District of New Orleans for US District Judge Henry A. Mentz, where she managed hundreds of cases and advised on a wide variety of legal issues including antitrust, False Claim actions, insurance, contracts, constitutional law, personal injury and product liability. Much of her work focused on complex litigation, multi-district cases, and mass tort class actions. Jamie’s most recent work has been of counsel to the law firm of Richard A. Harpootlian, P.A.

In 2021, she was nominated and confirmed to be the US Ambassador to the Republic of Slovenia where she served until mid-2024. Upon her return, she resumed her work as of counsel to Richard A. Harpootlian, P.A.

Jamie recently served as the US Ambassador to the Republic of Slovenia. Jamie was a dedicated advocate for Slovenia’s support of Ukraine including Slovenia’s donations of critical military supplies, infrastructure support, and humanitarian aid. She supported multinational and NATO training exercises in Slovenia, oversaw multiple Reception, Staging, and Onward Movement (RSOM) operations through Slovenia’s Port of Koper, and facilitated US support of Slovenia’s cyber-defense capabilities. She galvanized Slovenia’s single largest Foreign Military Sales case to date of US-made military equipment for the Slovenian Armed Forces, significantly improving interoperability of its military capabilities with US and NATO forces. The Slovenian Ministry of Defense awarded Jamie the medal for International Cooperation, First Grade, for her personal input in improving the bilateral defense and military cooperation during the period of 2022-2024.

Jamie’s efforts in developing close ties and strong trust, led to several forward-thinking, positive US-Slovenian economic initiatives focused on strong 5G telecommunications, stability in the Western Balkans, and robust US-Slovenian business connections especially in Slovenia’s promising science, aerospace, and tech sectors. Slovenia signed on to NASA’s Artemis Accords to advance responsible space exploration and was selected by the State Department to participate in a feasibility study to transition coal-powered plants to small modular nuclear reactors. In addition, the US and Slovenia signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to counter disinformation, and an MOU on the Fulbright Program to remove the sunset provision so that the agreement would continue indefinitely.

Jamie sought to deepen US-Slovenian relations through public and cultural diplomacy. She made it a priority to meet Slovenians where they live and work, engaging with mayors, religious leaders, business leaders, educators and students, artists, sportsmen, environmentalists, scientists and inventors, and actively supported several scholarly, scientific, and professional exchanges between Slovenia and the U.S.

Jamie received her J.D. from Tulane Law School. She received her B.A. with distinction in Political Science and Art History from Mary Baldwin University where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. While at Mary Baldwin, Jamie spent two semesters abroad for foreign study at University College, Oxford University and at the American University of Paris.

• US Supreme Court of the United States, 2001
• US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, 1996
• Louisiana State Bar Association, 1984

• The Honorable Henry A. Mentz, Jr., United States District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Born in Coronado, California, Harpootlian was raised in California and Columbia, SC. She is a lawyer and former ambassador. She currently serves as Trustee on the Board of the Nature Conservancy of South Carolina. She is married to lawyer, author and former South Carolina State Senator Dick Harpootlian.