As an in-house lawyer, Steven Schwab said on this week’s Drinks With The Deal podcast, “You have to understand what your business is, its goals, its risk tolerance.” And, he added, the role requires “a certain amount of humbleness. You are not just a lawyer” providing advice. “You are tasked with implementing practices and policies.”

Schwab, the general counsel and chief compliance officer at Thoma Bravo LP, joined the Chicago-based private equity sponsor in 2015 after working as the general counsel at several trading firms.

Trading firms, especially those that specialize in high-frequency trading, are “making millions of micro-decisions a day. They have to be right 51% of the time,” Schwab said, which creates an environment that tolerates risk. In contrast, even large PE sponsors do a relatively modest number of deals. “In order to get that deal done, so many decisions have to made, and every one of them has to be right.”

The familiarity with financial regulation that Schwab developed at trading firms was relevant to Thoma Bravo, which was adapting to a changing regulatory landscape when he joined the sponsor, Schwab said. “Eventually, my role grew. I had a background in funds, so I started to do some work around our fundraising, and then as a generalist.” Now, he said, “I get a breadth of issues.”

Listen to the podcast with Steven Schwab below:

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