Ann M. Credle, P.A.

A practice kept to family law

Based in Durham, North Carolina, the firm works within family law, and family matters make up the whole of its caseload. It handles divorce, and it takes high-asset divorce cases where the property at stake raises the pressure to get the numbers right. Property division and alimony sit alongside that work, since both decide how a couple's finances separate once a marriage ends.

The firm drafts separation agreements and prenuptial agreements for clients who want terms fixed in writing. A prenuptial agreement sets expectations before a marriage, and a separation agreement records them as a couple moves apart. Both documents aim to reduce later friction by putting the terms down clearly while the two sides still agree.

The custody and support work runs deep. The firm takes child custody and child support cases, and it handles the modifications that follow when a custody or support order has to change with a family's circumstances. Paternity cases fall under the same heading, and so do grandparents' rights, which give a grandparent standing to seek time with a child. The firm also handles domestic violence matters.

Mediation and related documents

The firm provides mediation, a route that aims to settle a dispute by agreement between the parties. It can also prepare living wills and health care powers of attorney for clients who want those documents in place. Its clients come from Durham and the wider Triangle region of North Carolina.

Many family cases touch several of these areas at once. A single divorce can bring property division, alimony, child custody and child support into one file, and the firm handles each of those threads for a client. Keeping the linked issues with one attorney can spare a client the effort of coordinating separate lawyers on a matter that already carries stress.

The attorney who runs it

Ann M. Credle leads the firm as its sole practitioner. She earned her law degree from Campbell University Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law in 1993, and she holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. North Carolina admitted her to the bar in 1993, the same year she completed law school, so her career sits entirely within the state's courts.

Her route to running her own firm passed through several stops. She practiced in Goldsboro and Raleigh in her early years. She then joined Bourlon and Credle, where she worked from 1994 to 2003. Those nine years gave her a base in the field before she set up on her own in 2003, opening Ann M. Credle, P.A. under her own name.

In my opinion, more than twenty years at the head of her own firm gives clients a plain line of accountability. One lawyer sets the approach on a case, and the same lawyer answers for it. For a family law matter, where the facts get personal and the decisions carry for years, that kind of continuity has real value.

Credentials that fit the work

Credle holds certification as a Family Financial Mediator. That credential sits close to the money side of family law, the property division and alimony questions that often decide how a divorce settles. A Family Financial Mediator works with couples on the financial terms of a separation and looks for terms both sides can accept, which suits the high-asset divorce work the firm lists. Her own mediation service draws on the same training.

Her professional memberships keep her close to the courts that hear her cases. She belongs to the Durham County Family Law Bar and to the 14th District Bar. Both memberships sit in the district that covers Durham, where her cases are decided.

Who else the site names

The firm lists a second attorney, Kate Haas, in its Attorney Profiles. Her name appears on the roster alongside Credle. On the public pages, Credle carries the sole practitioner title and the family law focus that runs through the whole firm.

What the record shows

Credle opened the firm in 2003, so it has run under the same name for more than two decades. That span puts a long local track behind the office, all of it in family law and all of it in the Durham area. As a reviewer, I read that continuity as the firm's clearest signal: a single family law attorney with a long footing in Durham, holding a financial mediation credential alongside her North Carolina law license.

The firm's family law offering holds steady across divorce, custody, support, prenuptial agreements and paternity. Ann M. Credle, P.A. presents itself as a focused Durham family law office led by an attorney admitted in North Carolina since 1993.