Helen is Daria's mother.  She's a lawyer with the firm Vitale, Davis, Horowitz, Riordan, Schrecter, Schrecter, and Schrecter, and tends to place her job ahead of her family, and is an ex-hippie who occasionally gets worried about having sold out.

She and Jake don't have a very good relationship at the moment, and one of Helen's top priorities is always "getting the spice back in her marriage", but it always gets pushed aside when Eric, her boss, calls.

She has two sisters, Amy and Rita, but harbors a deep-seated resentment against Rita, who Helen thinks was always her mother's favorite.

As much focus as Helen puts on her job, she's still observant enough to tell when her daughters are having a problem and to get involved in their lives, although she really doesn't seem to be able to tell when Quinn is flat out lying. Helen does tend to resort to bribery to speed up the parenting process.