diff --git a/dev/create-release/releaseutils.py b/dev/create-release/releaseutils.py
index 51ab25a6a5bd..7f152b7f5355 100755
--- a/dev/create-release/releaseutils.py
+++ b/dev/create-release/releaseutils.py
@@ -24,7 +24,11 @@
 
 try:
     from jira.client import JIRA
-    from jira.exceptions import JIRAError
+    # Old versions have JIRAError in exceptions package, new (0.5+) in utils.
+    try:
+        from jira.exceptions import JIRAError
+    except ImportError:
+        from jira.utils import JIRAError
 except ImportError:
     print "This tool requires the jira-python library"
     print "Install using 'sudo pip install jira'"