Sometimes she will shed the odd one watching an emotional episode of Neighbours.

Or the time “hubby” took her 50 kilometres off the Queensland coast on his fishing boat, her seasick vomit becoming berley to bait encircling tiger sharks.

When a sliver of dry land came into sight, she burst into a geyser of tears.

Allen is not a strong swimmer, and hates the crunchy feeling of sand between her toes.

But the Gold Coast criminal lawyer does not bat an eyelid when sitting across a table from murderers, rapists, child molesters, drug traffickers, bikies and all manner of down, out and dirty crooks.

The legal eagle thrives on it. Allen floats down and plucks her clients out of trouble, who she says blow into the city like a transient ocean breeze.

“I don’t know why or what it is about the Coast – but we seem to get the most eccentric criminals.”

She says her firm partner, Lisa Searing, once had a client who “only spoke in dolphin”.

Allen once had to stop accepting gifts from a client who was charged with shoplifting.

For the 44-year-old, a reformed “mischief maker”, “challenger of authority” and one-time dropout of Miami High – “the sign read Hi Miami High for a reason,” – there was no alternative to pursuing a career in criminal law.

“I never thought of working in any other area. I love crime,” Allen says.

She has a dark sense of humour. On her desk, a fridge magnet with a Shakespeare quote reads: “Let’s kill all the lawyers.”

Allen is “the opposite of a girly-girl” and her rebellious streak comes out when she confesses she has a “yinyang tattoo with a dragon around it”.

“Most good criminal lawyers – I won’t say they are borderline psychotic (laughs), but they don’t see things in black and white.

“You need to have a lot of confidence and an ego to make it in this game. If you don’t – you’re treading deep water. You need to have it to deal with the clients and the nature of court.”

After all, this is the same woman who once made a police prosecutor cry in front of a packed courtroom.

Allen recalls the time a big, bad bikie client was rude to one of her legal secretaries.

“I phoned him and told him to f**k off and find another lawyer,” she says.

The next day, the heavily tattooed bikie came to Allen’s Southport office with his tail between his legs to apologise in person to the colleague. He was holding a huge bunch of flowers.

“The funny thing was he didn’t try to hide behind bravado. He came in with an equally imposing mate,” Allen chuckles.

GCB: What was the catalyst moment for you to become a lawyer?

JA: As a teenager, I never got into trouble personally (touch wood), but let’s just say I was hanging out with a crowd that could have been seen as a bad influence.

I saw a lot of young kids – not necessarily being dealt with harshly by police – but more not knowing their rights. And people wielding a lot of power over the somewhat powerless.

Back then, it was me wanting to stand up for myself.

I love legal language and I love arguing. So it seemed natural to either want to do journalism or law. And when I went to do my law degree, none of the other areas of law interested me. It was either crime or nothing.

It was also never a monetary pursuit for me. People think you get paid boatloads in criminal law because of the flashy suits. But the reality is it is one of the lowest paying areas in law.

I remember starting my articles and thinking about how I made more working at a soap and bath bomb factory in West Burleigh (laughs).

GCB: Starting out as a lawyer two decades ago, how influential was it for you to have a mentor like Bill Potts?

JA: Phenomenally. It was Bill, Adam (Guest) and Cameron (Browne) with Price and Roobottom (as the firm was called then). The three of them had completely different styles. They would look at the law differently, they would practice the law differently and would interact with their clients and the court differently.

Seeing them have that diverse love and appreciation for the law was very inspiring.

Cameron had a real intellectual approach, Adam was robust and gruff and Bill was a combination of everything. They really took me under their wing.

In 2002 I commenced my articles and did work experience with Chris Nyst and Jason Murakami. And going to court – even though I was just carrying a briefcase – was fantastic.

GCB: You spoke earlier about not seeing things in black and white as a criminal lawyer. What is it about a criminal lawyer’s psyche that makes one able to grasp and understand what humans are capable of at their worst?

JA: It’s that part of the psyche that helps manage the job day-in, day-out. That you’re not going to be mentally scarred by some of the things you hear and see. I think it’s the same thing that makes a good police officer.

I remember when I got my first box of autopsy photos on a murder. It was just flicking through them and I was okay. But then having to secure them in a box and tape it up so the support staff wouldn’t inadvertently stumble across them made me realise you need to possess something internally to protect yourself.

The same goes for watching someone give a statement, or their version to police. Particularly young children who have been abused. That can be scarring.

GCB: You’ve represented murderers, rapists, wife bashers, child abusers and generally the worst of the worst. How do you approach subjects like that as a woman?

JA: Everyone who is charged is a person. But – a lot of defendants are men; someone’s brother, father, son, cousin – whatever. It is about looking beyond the charge or gender without getting embroiled in the person or their personality.

Ultimately, it’s your job to help them to the best of your ability.

GCB: Dealing with the clients you do, does a criminal lawyer ever have to worry about disgruntled clients? Are there ever any fears for your safety?

JA: There was one I vividly remember from my early days as a legal clerk. Adam (Guest) called me into his office one day saying he had received a call from police.

Essentially, we were told that our lives may be in danger if our client rolled on certain people.

I also had a client once who asked me to drive him home right after a court appearance. He had blown all his money the night before - thought he was going to jail. I gave him $20 instead and told him to get a train.

I’ve also had Christmas cards sent to me from a repeat client who was in jail for raping two hitchhikers he picked up.

GCB: Do you ever have to deal with any misogynistic slurs thrown your way from male clients or complainants?

JA: One bloke yelled out to me that I had a fat arse. I yelled back and said I know! (laughs). I thought he could do better than that.

GCB: How has the legal landscape changed since you started in terms of the gender split? Despite recently hiring a male, you’ve ran the Gold Coast’s first all-female law firm – Allen and Searing – since 2016.

JA: To be a criminal lawyer, you’re on call 24/7. You work your guts out and do long hours. I don’t have children. Most women want to pop out kids. If you want to practice criminal law in any capacity and have a family, you really need to work for the government. Legal Aid or the DPP (Department of Public Prosecutions).

Even today, you won’t see many women in private criminal law firms who are in senior positions.

When I started it was definitely a boys club and still is – to an extent.

I think it’s partly to do with the type of law that we do. Law is generally still kind of old school.

You always heard rumours of things happening at certain firms (sexism) but I was never treated any differently to the other male practitioners.

I’m certain that there would have been some practitioners out there who may have looked at me and thought ‘who are you sleeping with to get where you are’, but as a young practitioner with the mentors that I had, I never experienced that culture.

As for Allen and Searing, it was never intentional for us to hire only women. We have Nick now and it’s great to break up some of that oestrogen.

GCB: You’re a huge fan of punk rock music. Do you find it cathartic to play it on the way home to forget about the day’s work?

JA: Absolutely. I started listening to it when I was around 14. It clicked with me because if you listen to the lyrics it’s actually about society. It’s not just pop lyrics talking about boy meets girl and falls in love or country music where ‘my dog bit me on the arse and my wife left me.’

I remember hearing the Dead Kennedys’ ‘Holiday in Cambodia’ and finding it really eye-opening.

The Dead Kennedys, Suicidal Tendencies and Black Flag were all inspirational to me.

GCB: Do you ever get into true crime books or podcasts?

JA: I can’t stand them. I don’t mind the odd Scottish or Scandi detective novel. With true crime, I always feel like the producer or writer has f**ked a crucial detail up or gotten something wrong. Also, the language is never accurate – it irks me.

GCB: People often criticise criminal lawyers and ask how they sleep at night representing the clients they do. Surely there have been some cases that have kept you up?

JA: It’s not so much the emotional impact of cases that have kept me awake but the actual work involved. Susan Falls’ trial was one example. There wasn’t just a lot at stake for my client and her family – but the law – because we were running with self-defence. It was a landmark case at the time.

There was an academic article published after that trial that kept repeating things about ‘a team of defence lawyers’. We weren’t a team. It was me and a barrister Jeff Hunter (KC).

We didn’t have an army of clerks that could run out and do things. We didn’t have senior counsel, junior counsel or the resources to have people do the research for us.

It was just me in my office around the clock punching out subpoenas and phoning people for years.

And while you’re tackling a case like that, you’re also running your normal everyday matters. And they are just as important because the people are important.

*In 2010, Sunshine Coast mother Susan Falls was found not guilty of murdering her husband Rodney Falls on the grounds of self-defence, after claiming she suffered more than 20 years of violent abuse. She walked free after admitting to drugging and shooting Rodney Falls and arranging to have his body dumped in a state forest near Mapleton, on the Sunshine Coast. For over two decades, she was beaten, burned, threatened, dragged across floors by her hair, forced to have sex and told members of her family would be killed. She tried to leave once, in 2000, after a police officer managed to make her understand one day Rodney Falls would probably kill her.

Meet Chris Nyst, Michael Gatenby, Jason Murakami, Bill Potts, Chris Hannay, Jodi Allen and more – these are the Gold Coast’s criminal lawyers and their stories