Jamie Ross

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ADA Jamie Ross
Law & Order character

Time on show	1996–1998
Succeeded	Claire Kincaid
Preceded	Abbie Carmichael
First appearance	Causa Mortis
Last appearance	Monster
Portrayed by	Carey Lowell

Jamie Ross was a fictional character on the TV drama Law & Order, portrayed by Carey Lowell from 1996 to 1998. She also appeared in the short-lived L&O spinoff Law & Order: Trial By Jury.

The character was introduced in 1996 (in the episode "Causa Mortis") as a former defense attorney who entered the Manhattan District Attorney's office as an Assistant District Attorney, replacing Claire Kincaid (Jill Hennessy), who had been killed in a car accident in the previous episode ("Aftershock".) She initially had a rocky relationship with Executive Assistant DA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), both because he was still mourning Kincaid, who had been his lover, and because McCoy's penchant for bending trial rules clashed with her liberal idealism and sense of legal ethics. While the two never saw perfectly eye-to-eye, however, they eventually grew to be close, trusted friends.

In 1997, a bitter custody battle with Ross' ex-husband, Neil Gordon, over their daughter threw her personal and professional life into disarray. For the next year, the brutal litigation against her ex-husband (who was also a lawyer, for whom she used to work) left her with less and less time to devote to her job. She left the DA's office in 1998 (in the episode "Monster") to remarry and find a job that gave her more time to be with her family. She was replaced by Abbie Carmichael (Angie Harmon) in the following episode.

[edit] After working in the DA's office

The next time Ross and McCoy shared a courtroom, in the 1999 episode "Justice," it was as adversaries; once again a defense attorney, she was representing a client McCoy was prosecuting for murder. When McCoy discovered she had provided legal advice to a man previously incarcerated for the crime, however, Ross recused herself and went to the Bar Association's Disciplinary Committee, who eventually exonerated her with help from McCoy's testimony on her behalf.

They were again on the opposite sides of the aisle in the 2001 episode "School Daze," when she represented a student who had killed several classmates in a shooting at his school. Originally, Ross had the upper hand, getting a handgun and other evidence dismissed due to slip-ups in procedure by detectives Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach) and Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin). However, when new evidence emerged and the judge decided the boy was competent to stand trial, the case was restarted. After the boy's father (who believed his son would kill again if freed) testified on the stand that his son had admitted the crime to him, the boy was convicted.

In 2005, she became a trial judge, the role she played on Trial by Jury.