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They sold their souls for rock ‘n’ roll, though they kept their day jobs, don’t gig very often and haven’t destroyed a motel room in a good long while.

Meet the Bench Bar Boogie Band: lawyers who rock, when they have time. The band’s blazing arc through rock ‘n’ roll history started in 1991 when Ann Scarle, executive director of the Baton Rouge Bar Association, asked Kean Miller attorney-musicians Bill Jarman and Max Kees if they could put together a group for that year’s Bench Bar Conference.

“Somebody had the idea it would be fun to have a band composed of lawyers,” Jarman says. “They knew that we had been musicians earlier in life. It was Max on drums and me on keyboard and guitar.”

Filling out the lineup were Roy Ba-deaux, a mean lead guitarist and husband of a Kean Miller legal secretary; Mike Palmintier, lead singer and plaintiffs lawyer; and L.J. Hymel, a bass-playing judge who would go on to become U.S. attorney.

“We got together, learned about 15 tunes and played for this conference,” Jarman says. “They asked us to do it again the next year. So then we did it again, and all of a sudden people started asking us to play at wedding receptions and everything, so we just went commercial.”

Eventually the band added Ba-deaux’s wife Sheri on percussion and vocals, Jarman’s law partner Katherine King on keyboards and Glen Peterson out of the U.S. attorney’s office on tenor sax and vocals. Hymel retired from the band and the U.S. attorney’s office about two years ago. John Knipmeyer, a psychologist with Iberville Parish schools, replaced Hymel on bass.

Seventeen years later, the Boogie Band is a seasoned, totally danceable, rock ‘n’ roll party machine cover band: Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Mustang Sally, Born to Be Wild. The only criterion for a song to make it onto the set list is it’s got to be danceable. Jarman, who joined his first band in high school, never expected music to be more than a hobby.

“I wasn’t at that level of musicianship probably back then,” he says. “I’m probably more at that level now.”

Not that he has any plans for rock stardom. Besides, being a musician in a professional touring band is “hard, hard work,” notes Jarman, who’s content playing in a band of, as he puts it, “minor rock stars.”

“You know when you got a good night when the audience loves it and everybody’s dancing and you just keeping going and going and you don’t even want to stop playing,” he says. “It’s exhausting. You’re sweating. You’re having a blast, though.”

And it’s not just fun, though it’s lots and lots of fun. It’s therapeutic as well and, let’s face it, being a lawyer is a stressful occupation. Playing music is a way to put it all behind you, at least for a little while.

“To do something that makes somebody enjoy it, and to get that feedback—there’s no way to describe what that feels like,” Jarman says. “It’s good for your soul. You stay young, I think, mentally at least, in terms of performing. Of course they’re zillionaires, but look at the Rolling Stones. They enjoy what they’re doing.”

Kees, who also doubles on keyboards, compares playing music to other stress-relievers like yoga and working out. Kees, who actually came close to a recording contract back in the day, says he can’t imagine not playing music.

“I don’t play golf. I play drums,” he says. “That’s my hobby.”

To Kees, nothing beats a good rhythm section: drums, bass, keyboards and rhythm guitar—that’s what makes a rock band, after all. Does beating on drumheads satisfy some primal urge? He laughs out loud at the question.

“I’ve been told that I am sort of a primal person, so maybe it does,” Kees says.

The Boogie Band is good enough that they’ve been invited to play the last few seasons at Live After Five, the downtown concert series held in the spring and fall; the band is on the fall 2008 roster. The band became too busy with gigs and eventually cut it down to about 12 or 15 a year: charity events, dental conventions and the like—and, of course, the annual Bench Bar Conference. Kees says the band turns down far more gigs than it accepts. They don’t even have a CD or Web site, which only adds to the mystique.

“This band has found a happy medium,” Kees says.

The Boogie Band has a good following, and its infrequent gigs are usually packed. Jarman says having someone with Palmintier’s vocal abilities helps.

“If there’s a star it’s Mike, because he’s the lead singer,” he says. “And Roy’s a great guitar player. We’re pretty good on the keyboards and horns and stuff. But you’ve got to have somebody that’s the star. Having a really good lead singer immediately makes you a cut above. Then if all your musicians are pretty good and you have a great sound man, you can’t compete with that.”

The Boogie Band isn’t the only band of rocking legal eagles around. Judge James Best of Louisiana’s 18th Judicial District is the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist for Slightly Off, a band also featuring Best’s son, Sam, on lead guitar; Steve Judice on piano, harmonica and fiddle; James Posey on drums and vocals; and Mike Walker on bass and vocals. They’re all lawyers except for Sam, an engineering student at LSU and lead guitar, and Posey.

The band started out with Best and a couple of lawyer buddies playing acoustic music with three-part harmony.

“We played acoustic guitar for a few months, then we realized we knew what people really wanted to hear,” he says. “All of sudden we went electric.”

Then his son returned from a stint in Montana a “monster player,” Best says, and joined the band. Slightly Off plays about two gigs a month, and that’s plenty. You can see them at Phil Brady’s, Superior Grill and La Carreta, among other venues. Since they don’t play often, everybody’s chomping at the bit when they do play, Best says.

“It’s a wonderful release for us,” he says. “It is our hobby, so we look forward to those weeks that we play.”

Even though it involves two hours of setup, four hard hours of playing with one break, an hour for teardown and often another hour or two on the road, “we love every minute of it,” Best says. It’s also a chance to bond with his son, which he values highly. And yes, there’s the therapeutic aspect.

“Being an attorney and being a judge, I’d suggest that it is stressful,” Best says. “You’re dealing with people’s lives. Music is important to us. We’re all musicians at heart, but being in a band like Slightly Off, we all realize we’re not quitting our day jobs anytime soon.”