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When Steve Ungar isn鈥檛 defending people accused of white collar crimes or volunteering to chair the state Lottery Commission, he spends his time playing jazz music and teaching his talent to others.

Ungar鈥檚 father, Sandy Ungar, has been a professional jazz drummer in St. Louis since the early 1940s. Ungar says he grew up in a house filled with music and probably started drumming when he was a toddler. His dad started teaching him early on, and then hired a drum teacher for Ungar when he was 10.

During his middle- and high-school years, Ungar played in the jazz and orchestra bands 鈥� and a few rock bands along the way. By 16, he was playing professionally around St. Louis as the Steve Ungar Jazz Quartet.

鈥淥ne of the jokes was that I never learned how to dance because I was always in the band,鈥� he says.

Enticed by the jazz program at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Ungar studied under Jimmy Cheatham, former music arranger for Count Basie. Ungar then transferred to the University of Washington and was mentored by renowned jazz musician and composer Oliver Nelson.

Ungar took a couple of years off after college to play music in San Francisco. With a bachelor鈥檚 degree in philosophy and a musician鈥檚 paycheck, however, he realized he needed to earn a better living. Ungar chose the law because, along with a better income, it provided a career filled with reading, writing and social justice.

Shortly after graduating from law school at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Ungar got involved with the Stanford Jazz Workshop, where he has been a performer and instructor since 1978. The workshop allowed him to play with mentors like Stan Getz, Joe Henderson and Jo Jones.

鈥淚 love the improvisation that goes with playing jazz,鈥� Ungar says. 鈥淭here are parallels between thinking on your feet as a lawyer and being with a group of musicians performing. With jazz, every performance is different from the one before and after.鈥�

The Stanford Jazz Workshop also has given Ungar a chance to teach children and adults about the history of jazz and how to play it.

鈥淲hen people play jazz and have this epiphany when they learn something new, it鈥檚 very exciting to see and participate in because you can help another person realize the joy and buoyancy of playing jazz compared to listening to it,鈥� he says.