Shames & Byrum, P.C.

I do not know this woman’s years of work. However, I do know this. She is appointed as a GAL at Norfolk Juvenile Court. In our case Both parties submitted Interrogatories, stating habits and the way they care for their child. This woman slandered me in the report. The report was clearly rushed and When I sat down to speak with Her about it pre-trial, she immediately shut down the idea of discussing the erroneous data in her report. She stated that her reports cannot be questioned. This is despite the fact that her firm pushes that they are great communicators. She had 4+ errors in the report and it was not updated to represent the updated facts of the case. She advocated for a home-base without researching the intricate details of the case, and now my daughter is suicidal. I finally figured out how she compiles her reports. In Virginia commonwealth it is stated that cases are taken “case by case” due to intricate details. However, this GAL compiles her reports using what seems like a “template” in the following way: She gets opinions about the opposing parties from one another and does not fact check. She did not visit our home as she is supposed to. We did not have a telephone interview. Everything that both parties sent is what she threw in the report. She also took a piece of the interrogatory and inserted it without learning any details. Now my daughter is suicidal in the home-base this GAL suggested. Please be careful with this GAL, because her lack of details, negligence and laziness can cost someone their life. The Judge Deemed me an “Honorable Father”, but the weight of Erica Byrum’s erroneous report, shot down the only outcome my daughter may have for peace, possible may cause a catastrophic outcome. And get this, when she walked past me at the end of the case as it was a fiasco, she said “Good Luck”. You would think she knew how much weight her reports hold. PS- If your child is in a tough situation, BEWARE, if you have a case where she is assigned, your lawyers won’t be the reason it gets pushed back 3-6 months.

Erica Byrum was very confident before the trial started and rightly so. She knew exactly what to say, even when evidence was just provided to her 10 minutes before the trial started. God forbid I'll need it, but in the future I hope I can count on her help again.

Mr. Byrum is a terrible criminal attorney. He did not know anything about my fiances case. He did nothing to help him at his bond hearing this morning that I paid a lot of money for. He said one sentence that made no sense at all nor did it help him. I have never seen an attorney so clueless about his own client's case. Do NOT put your loved ones life in this man hands!

Please do not hire Mr. Byrum for any case, period he isn't a lawyer that will do any research before the case. He was late coming to court, he hadn't talked to any of the people on the other side to see what they're request were to come to to a solution or agreement. We paid 2000.00 and it was a waist of time and money. He do not care about his clients. He will not work for you or do the proper research needed to build a case. Please, I'm begging you, Find another attorney.

Thank you Erica for getting defensive and yelling in the phone at 8:30 in the morning. At some point you need to take some accountability in you inaccurate reports. People’s lives are in danger but all you care about is yourself.