Alicia Videon, former head of restructuring at Olswang, recently joined McDermott Will & Emery after news broke that her former firm had signed up to a three-way merger with CMS UK and Nabarro.

During her time at at Olswang, Videon coordinated the firm's special situations group, set up after the financial recession. More recently, she was responsible for fielding questions related to the Brexit vote last summer. Standout deals she took roles on included advising the senior lenders to the owners of the Citi Tower in Canary Wharf on the restructuring of £1.6bn of debt in 2013.

Why did you become a lawyer? I did work experience with the local university particle physics department – they couldn't get research funding and were living on the breadline. They told me to be a lawyer as I'd get better paid and could wear nice clothes.

Who has been the biggest influence on your career? My mum.

What's your proudest professional moment? I had a quite tricky deal completing when I had to be in Australia – the team worked day and night to get there without me and no one was worried (well, not that they admitted!). I thought I must have done something right to get to that point.

…and worst day on the job?    I had been acting for a bank trying to restructure a PLC, which was at heart a family business. When we told the board one night the bank wasn't going to support them anymore and it was the end of the road, the shock on their face was dreadful – they had no idea it was coming. A lot of people lost their jobs and it was pretty grim.

Aside from your own firm, which lawyer do you most admire and why? Did you know that Gandhi and Mandela were lawyers? I just checked and think it's hard to go past either of them…

What's your strongest characteristic…and worst trait? I hope, a strong sense of fairness. I'm sure this isn't the worst, but I've been told I'm stubborn – I have pretty definite ideas of what I want to do.

What advice would you give to young deal lawyers starting out? Take a long-term view – if you're lucky, you will have a long career and life. Some of it won't be great but you want to look back in say 20, 30 years and overall, be proud of what you've done.

What's the best part of your job? The people, mostly.

What most annoys you about the legal profession? Personally, I think as lawyers we have a duty to drive positive social change and protect human rights and overall I don't think as a profession we do enough; diversity at a senior level in the profession is a bit shameful. In its defence, on the charity side I think the profession is generally very proactive.

What's the most unusual/shocking request you've ever had from a client? I was in a syndicate with some clients and friends (a bit of betting on horses) and we all put some upfront money in one of the syndicate's account at the bank he worked at. The bank thought we were all bribing the banker involved and did an investigation of us, which was quite funny.

Most memorable deal you have ever worked on and why? The Citi Tower restructuring, just because of the twists and turns. When we eventually had a deal, the closing process went over months and we had contingencies for everything. A trainee had to be outside the American embassy every morning for weeks ready to serve a close-out notice, in case we hit the trigger level. We had a contingency plan in case they got arrested.

Do you see yourself having a career outside law? Does growing vegetables count as a career? Actually, I'd like to do more work in the charitable sector.

What's your favorite item of clothing? I just bought a very cool, oversized Amanda Wakeley shirt.

It's midnight and you're in the office for the night, what's your takeaway of choice? Pizza will do.

What are your desert island discs? The Greatest Hits by INXS.

Favourite box set? The West Wing.