Talk to an Attorney

Contact Minnesota-based Sieben, Grose, Von Holtum & Carey to speak with one of our personal injury attorneys free of charge.






Featured Attorney

Four Office Locations

Minnesota AttorneyWith offices in...
Minneapolis
Lakeville
Fairfax
Duluth

News from Sieben, Grose, Von Holtum & Carey, LTD.

The Careys’ history with the law is anything but brief

A family's practice continues as the newest lawyer in another generation of Careys strides into Minnesota's courtrooms.

Shannon Keil had the job she had aimed for, managing the human relations office at a Twin Cities insurance company, when she met her father for lunch one day about four years ago.

“I think I want to go to law school,” she told him.

John Carey smiled.

"I was wondering when you were going to make that decision," he said.

Shannon's great-grandfather, James Patrick Carey, came to Minnesota from Wisconsin, where he had been born in 1873 to Irish immigrants. He learned a thing or two along the way and declared himself a lawyer, doing well enough to get himself named judge of the municipal court in Virginia Minn.

His son, Thomas J. Carey, graduated from law school in 1927, practiced in Ely, Minn., and eventually succeeded his father as municipal judge in Virginia.

James’ grandson – Shannon’s father, John Carey – is a founding partner of Sieben, Grose, Von Holtum & Carey.

And Thomas H. Carey – John’s twin – retired in 2000 as a Hennepin County district judge

Such multi-generational legal lineages aren’t common in Minnesota, according to a spokeswoman at the Minnesota Bar Association and John Simonett, a former associate justice of the state’s Supreme Court.

“There must be some that have come to a third generation, but a fourth? Dear lord, I’d say it’s quite unusual,” Simonett said.

The newest member of the Carey legal dynasty earned her law degree last spring and is an associate at Sieben, Grose, Von Holtum & Carey.

“My father didn’t encourage me or discourage me from going into the law, but he was the first person I told,” Keil said.

“I knew what my dad did. He left his work at his office; he didn’t bring it home. But I always knew when he was gone for a few days that he was at trial somewhere.”

The Sieben firm threw a party Thursday in downtown Minneapolis for new lawyers, and within the party there was a special welcome for Shannon Carey Keil.

To help establish her credentials, the family brought in a century-old portrait of Judge James Patrick Carey.

“She’s going to be one hell of a lawyer,” said Jim Carey, 47, the patriarch’s namesake, Keil’s cousin and a lawyer at the same firm.

“She’s great with people, highly motivated, and she’s smarter than I am – or her dad, or my father.”

His father, Tom Carey, a retired judge, affirmed that opinion.“Shannon is smarter than her dad and me put together,” he said, laughing

Iron Range

Tom Carey remembers walking the streets of Iron Range towns with his uncle and namesake, Judge Thomas Carey. “He had a route he covered, but in election years he doubled his distance. He would always walk slowly, with his hands clasped behind his back, and he knew everybody we met.

“He always brought us kids rolls of 100 pennies when he came to visit. In the early ‘40s, that was a treasure.”

Law was the center of the family environment, Tom Carey said.

“My father, who was not a lawyer, always talked about the law and Grandpa,” he said. “I have seen so often men and women of my age discouraging their children from going into their profession. ‘It isn’t what it used to be’ they say, or ‘It’s too hard now.’

“But it’s been just the opposite within my family. You couldn’t choose a finer profession than the law. You couldn’t head in a better direction than the courtroom. You couldn’t be anything better than a judge.”

That his niece is the first woman in the family to practice law is not remarkable, he said.

Mary Jean Coyne, the late Minnesota Supreme Court justice, “was one of my mentors and the finest legal mind I ever met, bar none,” Judge Carey said. “But she was the only woman lawyer I knew. Now, at least 50 percent of law school graduates are women. That’s a wonderful evolution.”

Keil, 31, first seriously thought about the law when she was 14 or 15, “but I decided against it,” she said. In college, she studied business, planning to go into human services.

“I wanted to help people,” she said. “I wanted to be the voice of the individual within the corporation.”

She is eager now to try that in courtrooms, she said, and to extend a family legacy.

“I knew what my dad did. He left his work at his office; he didn’t bring it home. But I always knew when he was gone for a few days that he was at trial somewhere.”

“The family history isn’t what made my decision,” she said. “But I am a little in awe of how far back it goes.”

So is her cousin, who has been in the family business for more than 20 years.

“There’s been a lot of independent and strong-willed people in our family,” Jim Carey said. “Our fathers have great reputations in the legal community. Hopefully, we won’t screw it up.”