And now the Victoria Legal Aid lawyer is calling it a day and retiring.

Ms Youngson has been in Bendigo for 10 years, but the London-born lawyer's career began in the United Kingdom.

She started out as a prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, a role that kept her extremely busy.

"But I think when you're fairly young and new to the profession, you don't mind that," Ms Youngson said.

"You want something that's going to be challenging and you get stuck in. It was interesting, I really enjoyed it."

One of her more memorable cases was a man who had killed his girlfriend in an exorcism; she also recalls a sophisticated conman who befriended a woman, imprisoned her, then stole her money in a cruel power trip.

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She and her late partner then moved to New Zealand, where she again worked as a prosecutor.

Like her job in London, this saw her work on a variety of serious criminal matters, from drug importations to murders.

There she met her husband and the pair moved to Brisbane, but relocated to central Victoria to be more in the midst of the motorcycle racing scene.

Coming to Bendigo, however, saw her move to the other end of the bar table and begin working as a defence lawyer.

"It was quite challenging because it Victorian law, and I had been used to Queensland law... And just getting my head around the other side of the table, if you like," Ms Youngson said.

"The principles are still the same; you're still an officer of the court and your first duty is to the court, so that doesn't change, but it's just a question of looking at it from a different angle."

She spent about a year at local firm Cahills, then joined the Legal Aid team.

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Moving from prosecuting to defending did not change Ms Youngson's perspective, but did make her more aware of the factors behind offending.

"I always considered myself to be a very fair prosecutor," she said.

"I was always aware that people had problems and people had issues, and they didn't commit offences just for the hell of it - there was normally a reason or something that put them in that position... I suppose now I'm more aware because I'm the first port of call for a lot of people who have those problems."

Her time with VLA has been positive.

"They're a good employer, the people I work with in the office are very good," Ms Youngson said.

"It's a small office, but it's friendly, people support one another, and the work is so varied... You never know who's going to walk through the door, what you're going to get on a Monday morning when you phone the police station."

Working with more disadvantaged people in the community as a Legal Aid lawyer, she said, was something she found satisfying.

"Some people really don't stand a chance from the moment they're born... and I just like to feel that we're helping in some small way," she said.

But a desire to spend time with her father and family overseas played a part in her decision to join her husband in retirement.

They now look forward to catching up with loved ones travelling, and simply "enjoying the downtime".

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