Janelle Brienzi

Ms. Brienzi’s life experiences have helped to shape her professional career as an attorney, with a focus on all types of what falls under the description of “family law.”

Born in a small town just south of Buffalo, New York, her athletic skills took her to undergraduate school at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, where she was a Division I runner on the cross-country and track-and-field teams. Even with all the time-consuming responsibilities of being a college athlete, she still at that young age was drawn to volunteer for Oasis, a non-profit organization whose mission was to help survivors of domestic and sexual violence in Watauga County, deep in the NC mountains.

Janelle believes that her experience as a young undergraduate student and law student counseling people in trouble, victims of abuse and violence, gives her a perspective on her clients and on each individual case that is important to providing those clients with the best representation.

She truly believes that each case coming through her door — be it divorce, child custody, domestic violence or another issue — represents the most stressful and life changing time in a client’s life. Thus, she believes that narrowing her practice to family law means she can devote her full energy to each of those cases and each of those clients. It is in dealing with people, in talking to them, counseling them, comforting them, that she finds her most rewarding moments.

And she enjoys as well helping people shape and create new families through adoption, a joyous part of her practice. She believes all of her life’s challenges have brought her to this stage of her career.

Janelle is also certified as a Parenting Coordinator and offers this service to clients.

In her own family moments, Janelle paints, and enjoys time with her husband, a restaurateur, and her two daughters and two step sons.