“Early in my career, when I relocated to the Twin Cities from Rochester, I had six years of experience but no clients,” says Remington. “I started out at the bottom. Minnesota can be a hard place to break into for an outsider because it seems everyone knows one another from birth. And I’m the first to admit, I’m not Minnesota nice. I’m not passive aggressive. I’m very outspoken and I even tell my clients upon first meeting them, ‘You should know this about me, I’m not from Minnesota, I am from Chicago. You’ll never be confused about what I’m thinking or what I want from you.’
“I have been teased by my colleagues about the number of firms I have worked at. I don’t think of it as a negative because I have worked with some of the very best family law attorneys in the Twin Cities.”
Hellmuth & Johnson was Remington’s second job in the Twin Cities. At that time, the firm only had about 10 attorneys. She had been making a long commute and had heard good things about the firm, so she joined. She was only the second female attorney on staff.
“Now, there are close to 20 female attorneys, but who’s counting?” she says.
Remington happily made the move and worked there for a while, but her career was not progressing as she had hoped.
“At that time Hellmuth & Johnson was a young, growing firm, and I was the only family law practitioner,” she says. “So, when I got a call from one of the best practitioners in the business in a boutique, all family law attorney firm, inviting me to join them I said yes. It was the best thing for me at that time. I had nothing bad to say about H&J, it’s just that I felt I really needed to get out there and be known.”
As though fate was guiding her, Remington came full circle.
After moving firms, gaining experience and visibility, she opened her own practice in Edina where she stayed for about 10 years. “During COVID, I got a call from Chad Johnson, H&J’s managing partner. He said they were starting up a family law department again and had the names of some possible candidates to run by me. Well, long story short, I returned to H&J. The timing was finally right, everything came together. Hellmuth & Johnson feels like home, and I said to myself, ‘This is where I want to retire.’”
Under Remington’s leadership, the Hellmuth & Johnson family law team has expanded to five attorneys (soon to be six) and two paralegals, with no plans to slow down. “I could not be more pleased with how the department has grown in the past two years,” Remington says. “With the strength and caliber of the attorneys we now have, the future is exciting for both our team and the firm.”
