Carolyn Woodruff Rogers graduated from Mary Washington College of the University of Virginia with a degree in studio art, and from the University of Georgia School of Law. She is admitted to the South Carolina Bar, the State Bar of Georgia, the Virginia State Bar, and the York County Bar Association. She practiced law in Virginia and then in Pickens from 1983-1986. After moving to Rock Hill in 1986, she concentrated in the areas of estates and trusts, probate litigation, land use regulation, and commercial and residential real estate. She was often appointed as an attorney or guardian ad litem in family court DSS cases, and represented many children in foster care on a pro bono basis. She was elected probate judge in 2010 and again in 2014.

While a practicing attorney, Judge Rogers was Council chair of the Probate, Estates and Trusts Section of the South Carolina Bar. She was a member of the study committee for the adoption of the S. C. Trust Code and then co-chair of its technical corrections committee. When the probate code underwent revisions from 2009 through 2013, she participated as a lawyer and then as a judge. She chairs an ad hoc committee of the S. C. Association of Probate Judges which is working with elder law attorneys on the Article 5 Task Force to revise guardianship and conservatorship statutes.

Other activities prior to her service on the Bench included chairing the York County Zoning Board of Appeals and participating as president or board member of various community organizations. As probate judge, she speaks often to churches and other community groups and businesses about advance planning and the role of the probate court, to law enforcement in regard to mental health commitments, and to members of the SC Bar as to practice tips in the probate court.

Judge Rogers has two sons, a daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren.