Thomas B. Shuttleworth

Tom Shuttleworth is the senior partner in the firm.  As the son of working class parents, he worked his way through college and law school in a variety of jobs including parking cars, waiting tables, working in construction, working in hospitals, as a police officer, and the law library.

Mr. Shuttleworth is a trial lawyer who tries both personal injury and criminal cases.  He is admitted to the United States Supreme Court.  He is a member of the Fourth Circuit Judicial Conference and has in the past served in leadership roles in the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association.  He graduated in 1973 from Washington & Lee University Law School where he was a member of the Washington & Lee Law Review.  He is listed in the Best Lawyers in America under both civil and criminal and is AV rated in The Martindale-Hubbell.  He is one of the lawyers in Virginia Beach listed in the Legal Elite who has been listed under both civil and criminal law.  He was chosen as the 2009 Personal Injury Lawyer of the year by Best Lawyers in America for the Norfolk/Virginia Beach area.  He taught law for three years at William & Mary Law School .

Mr. Shuttleworth has tried several cases to million dollar verdicts, the latest being medical malpractice cases one for $2,000,000.00 for an anesthesia accident and one for $3,500,000.00 verdict for a child suffering from erbs palsy; he obtained a verdict of $5,000,000.00 for the wrongful death of a doctor; $2,100,000.00 for the loss of an eye; $1,000,000.00 for misdiagnosis of Lupus; $2,100,000.00 for the wrongful death of a mother in a medical malpractice case; $1,500,000.00 for a seaman who had both ankles broken in a fall; and was one of the lawyers who represented homeowners in a $33,000,000.00 settlement for "jet noise" from a nearby Navy base.

He has tried several cases to highly successful conclusions in maritime, medical malpractice, and personal injury cases as well as major felony criminal trials.

He has won acquittals in several major felony cases.  He was successful in overturning the wrongful conviction of NBA basketball star Allen Iverson and having the case dismissed and expunged from Mr. Iverson's record.  He and Bob Morecock, another member of the firm, tried the first criminal trial televised in Virginia and secured a manslaughter conviction in high profile first degree murder prosecution.  He has secured acquittals or dismissals in seven first degree murder prosecutions.  He has represented successfully defendants in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in cases reversed for Batson violations.  He has appeared 20 times in either the Supreme Court of Virginia or the Fourth Circuit to argue cases on appeal.  He currently has a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court has granted certiorari in a 6th Amendment case.

Best Lawyers, the oldest and most respected peer-review publication in the legal profession, named Tom Shuttleworth as the Norfolk Area Best Lawyers Personal Injury Litigator of the Year for 2009.