JAMES H. SHOEMAKER, JR.

Jamie Shoemaker focuses his practice on whistleblower and employment law. He has tried more than seventy cases to verdict in state and federal courts of record throughout the United States, before arbitration panels, Administrative Law Judges and other forums. He has successfully resolved hundreds more of his clients' claims through mediation and negotiated settlement. 

Highly experienced in complex litigation, Jamie has served as lead counsel and co-lead counsel in some of the most significant False Claims Act (“FCA”) and employment cases in the United States. Jamie represented the successful whistleblower in U.S. ex rel Williams v. Reckitt Benckiser Group (“RBG”) which settled for a total of $1.4 billion dollars in 2019 – at the time it was the largest fraud settlement ever obtained related to the opioid crisis. In 2021, he represented the same client against a Reckitt subsidiary that resulted in an additional $600 million dollar settlement. Though Jamie’s client was the third to file against the Reckitt family of companies, he was the first lawyer to name the London-based parent, RBG. As a result, Jamie’s client was deemed first-filed as to both cases and won a high eight-figure whistleblower award. Jamie also represented one of the eight successful relators in the 2009 recovery against Pfizer totaling $2.3 billion. The Pfizer and Reckitt settlements are each among the top 5 FCA settlements ever obtained. In 2017, Jamie obtained the largest FMLA verdict ever returned in Virginia, and one of the largest in the U.S. He has achieved wage and hour class action recoveries that are among the largest ever obtained in the Southeast. He was named one of Virginia’s ten “Go To Employment Lawyers” by Virginia Lawyers Weekly in 2022.

Jamie holds Martindale Hubbell’s AV Preeminent rating, that firm’s highest rating for quality and integrity. Since 2006, Jamie has been listed in "Best Lawyers in America," a publication which seeks to identify the country's top practitioners through a national survey of lawyers and judges. For the past sixteen years Virginia Business Magazine has named him to its "Virginia Legal Elite" listing of the state's top lawyers. In 2005, the New York Chapter of the National Employment Lawyers Association awarded Jamie their Courageous Advocate Award at a ceremony in Manhattan.

Jamie attended the Virginia Military Institute on a Navy ROTC scholarship and received a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from VMI in 1984. Upon his graduation from VMI, he was commissioned as a naval officer and served four years on active duty and three years in the reserves. While on active duty, he served as navigator and tactical action officer aboard a destroyer and made two deployments to the North Atlantic and Middle East. In 1991, after his naval service, he received his Juris Doctor from the University of Richmond.

Virginia Governor George Allen appointed Jamie as a commissioner of the seven member Hampton Roads Sanitation District Commission in 1995. HRSD is a public wastewater utility with an annual budget of approximately $200,000,000.00. He was reappointed to HRSD by Governor Jim Gilmore in 2000. Jamie served as president and trustee of the Sarah Bonwell Hudgins Foundation for over ten years. He has also served on the Boards of the Peninsula Metropolitan YMCA, Peninsula Legal Aid, St. Andrews Episcopal School, the Fort Monroe Authority Finance Committee, and Christopher Newport University Sailing Foundation. He is a former board member and president of the Hampton Roads Federal Bar Association. Jamie currently serves on the Peninsula Regional Board of Old Point National Bank.

Jamie resides in Poquoson, Virginia, with his wife, Kimberly. They have a daughter, Jill, who is a reporter and aspiring actress in Chicago.