Woodruff Family Law Group

Focus and practice areas

Family law is the whole of what this Greensboro firm does. It takes no criminal defense, no personal injury, no corporate work as a sideline. The practice concentrates on family matters in the Piedmont Triad region of North Carolina.

The work covers the events that usually bring people to a family lawyer. Divorce sits at the center. Around it, the firm handles premarital agreements, child custody, child support, equitable distribution and property division, and spousal support or alimony.

The scope reaches past the basic filings. The firm's own pages describe family law appeals, alienation of affection and other civil actions, mediation, collaborative law, and international family law issues. It also names high net worth and high income cases, along with the business and financial planning that a divorce can require. In my opinion, that last point matters more than it first appears, because dividing a closely held business or a complex estate asks for a different kind of preparation than a straightforward separation does.

How the team is built

The firm names eight attorneys: Woodruff, Csuka, Yin, Alcon, Mengert, Jeffries, Carson, and Branson. Behind them, the site describes a staff that includes accountants, North Carolina Certified Paralegals, and legal assistants. That mix says something about how the firm approaches the money side of family disputes.

Carolyn J. Woodruff is the Principal and Managing Attorney. She holds a law degree from Duke University School of Law and has practiced for more than 25 years. She is also a Certified Public Accountant and a Certified Valuation Analyst, which is an unusual pairing for a family lawyer and fits a practice that handles asset valuation and financial planning in-house.

Jonathan D. Csuka is a director with the firm. The roster carries a range of backgrounds beyond the two most senior names, and several attorneys came to law after other careers.

Board certifications on the roster

North Carolina certifies lawyers in defined fields through the State Bar, and this firm lists more than one of those designations. Carolyn J.Woodruff is Board Certified by the State Bar in Family Law and was among the first group the State Bar certified in that field. Jonathan D. Csuka and Paul K. Mengert II hold the same Family Law certification. J. Michelle Alcon is Board Certified in Criminal Law, a credential that can matter when a family case touches on related criminal questions.

Paths into the practice

A few of the biographies show how varied the routes into this firm are. Lauren A. Jeffries earned a theatre degree from the University of North Carolina at Asheville in 2006, then a law degree from Elon University School of Law in 2010. Her work covers divorce, child custody, child support, and property division, along with arbitration and mediation.

Jeannette Carson taught elementary school in Guilford County for over a decade before law. She earned a Juris Doctor from Elon University School of Law and interned at Legal Aid of North Carolina during her studies. Marissa Branson joined the firm in 2025 after earning her law degree from Elon and a bachelor's in political science and women's and gender studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her work includes custody matters, including high-conflict custody, along with divorce and separation agreements. Michael Yin rounds out the group as a family law attorney with the firm.

Where the firm works

The practice is rooted in the Piedmont Triad and takes cases across a defined set of communities. The firm names Greensboro, High Point, Winston-Salem, Asheboro, Burlington, and Reidsville, along with surrounding North Carolina counties. Other locations are considered case by case.

That is a regional footprint rather than a statewide or national one. For a person looking for a family lawyer in central North Carolina, the geographic focus is useful information. It tells you the firm knows the local courts where these cases are actually heard.

What the record shows

The firm's public materials point to a practice built around one field and its financial complications. The presence of a CPA and a Certified Valuation Analyst at the top, plus accountants on staff, lines up with the stated focus on property division, business interests, and high income matters. These are the parts of a divorce where numbers, not just law, decide the outcome.

The certifications are worth weighing on their own terms.The North Carolina State Bar sets requirements for its board certification designations, and a firm listing three attorneys certified in family law has met those requirements three times. As a reviewer, I read that as a signal of sustained work in the field rather than a claim about results, which the firm does not publish and which I will not supply.

Some details a reader might want are simply not stated on the site. There is no founding year for the firm as a whole, and the biographies for several attorneys stay brief. What the pages do offer is consistent: a single practice area, named lawyers with checkable credentials, and a clear map of where the firm takes cases. For anyone weighing a family law matter in the Greensboro area, that combination gives a solid starting point for a first conversation.