Corporate partner Donald Stewart on releasing a CD and fiddling at the Faegre & Benson mothership

Music has always been a big part of my life. I started learning the piano and the violin at primary school, but my road to Damascus moment happened after arriving at secondary school and discovering traditional fiddle music.

To begin with, I played with some of the big fiddle orchestras and fiddlers' rallies all over Scotland. In 1978, at the ripe old age of 15, I went to a residential fiddle course at the University of Stirling, which changed my life. While these courses are now extremely popular and held all over the world, this was the first fiddle course of its kind. It introduced me to the incredible variety of fiddle music encompassed in the Scottish tradition.

The music of Shetland is dominated by fiddle playing and has a distinctive Scandinavian feel. West coast fiddle music was born during the post-Culloden period when playing the bagpipes was banned by the Government in Westminster. The music of Perthshire and Aberdeenshire varies from Baroque gems to complex show pieces and includes many well-known tunes that now form part of the bedrock of American old-time music and bluegrass.

I started playing the fiddle professionally while still at school and made my first recording in 1980, illustrating the diversity of fiddling styles in Scotland. Released on the EMI label, the Fiddlers Companion LP featured leading Scottish players Aly Bain, Tom Anderson from Shetland, Angus Grant from Fort William and others. It was reissued on CD a few years back.

I studied law at Edinburgh University, but spent most of my time playing in folk and ceilidh bands. I started the Amazing Spootiskerry Ceilidh Band in 1982 with some friends and we got our first big break when Dave Leckie (now a partner at Maclay Murray & Spens) hired us to play for the law faculty's Burns Night. We were a high-energy, full-throttle dance band with no time for the reserved performance style that was then adopted by most Scottish country dance bands. We also supported the then upcoming Scottish rock band Runrig at various gigs in Dundee, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Inverness.

Around the mid-1980s, I started to discover American fiddle music and, in particular, the swing fiddle music of Texas. After a couple of visits to Texas, I joined an Edinburgh-based country band and got some experience in the Scottish country and western circuit. They all took it very seriously, insisting on dressing the part, and it was an amusing sight to watch folk get off the 41 bus with their 10-gallon hats, lassos and saddles.

By the time I finished my traineeship at a private client firm in Edinburgh, I was earning as much money playing music as I was as a trainee. However, a job at a top London firm beckoned and I had to make a tough choice. I came to London in 1988 in time to catch the tail end of the Lawson Boom. The idea was to get some corporate legal work experience just for a few years.

But I never went back: law won and the music has taken a back seat. It has not been forgotten, though. In the early 1990s I formed the Conundrum Ceilidh Band, based in southwest London. During the later 1990s, I played with Richie Ahern's Croydon-based Dalcassian Dance Band for several years. However, as the day job got more serious I found it increasingly difficult to take on gigs – particularly to make commitments many months in advance.

As a result I have become a session musician. I now play for a variety of Scottish country dance bands around the southeast when they are short of a fiddle player.

I try to find other fiddle and folk music enthusiasts when I travel. On visits to the Faegre & Benson mothership, I can sometimes be found performing in the bars of Minneapolis with Professor Tom Lockney, a criminal law professor and banjo player from the University of North Dakota, after my colleagues have sensibly gone to bed.

In 2006 I co-founded London's only weekly Scottish fiddle music session, bringing together fiddle enthusiasts with a common repertoire. The group has grown and now meets every Monday evening in Kentish Town. I am also involved in Feis London – Feis is the Scottish Gaelic word for a festival or feast – a highly-successful series of music, song and dance workshops, which develop skills in Gaelic arts and traditional music on a wide range of instruments. It is now in its third year.

Another side to my musical endeavours has been my tune writing. I started writing music when I was still at school. After many years of prevaricating, and following some real encouragement from my wife, I booked some time in a recording studio last summer.

Releasing a CD under my own steam has proved quite a challenge – the recording itself is only half of the process. I may be a lawyer, but I had no idea about how to register compositions, obtain mechanical performance licences and so on. The artwork has also been a major job, but the result has been worthwhile. The finished CD, appropriately entitled Long Time Getting Here, landed on my doorstep on 5 January. Now I have to learn how to be a music distributor: a great project for a new year.

Donald Stewart is a corporate partner at Faegre & Benson and chairman of the Quoted Companies Alliance.