_________________________________________________________________________ Chrissy
Seethaler- Embecta Corp
emulate that by allowing failure. We don’ t always learn from our successes,” she shares.
Failure, in her view, isn’ t the absence of accountability. It actually requires it.“ You can’ t have failure and autonomy without having accountability,” she points out. For Chrissy, accountability is always constructive.“ It’ s education. It’ s coaching. It’ s figuring out what happened.”
She believes good ideas don’ t come from job titles alone. She often references a line from a Pixar film,“ anyone can cook,” as a reminder that insight can come from anywhere.“ Differing viewpoints allow us to expand our thinking and become more empathetic. We’ re not all experts at everything,” she notes. That mindset now defines embecta’ s legal operations culture.
Building the foundation
As embecta entered its first year as an independent company, the legal function quickly adjusted to the demands of a global business. Work volumes grew fast, and the team had to respond in real time.“ We found that we lacked the resources to be as efficient and nimble as we could be,” Chrissy admits.
Legal operations expanded from a single role to a three-person team within the first year after the spin, reflecting the scale of work involved in building systems from scratch and supporting teams across regions. As responsibilities evolved, the structure shifted again, with Chrissy balancing strategic initiatives alongside day-to-day operational support. She credits her teammate with making that balance possible:“ I can delegate, and I know that it’ ll get done and it’ ll get done right.”
As legal operations matured, it became a central point of coordination for the legal team, helping manage cross-functional work while continuously refining internal processes to keep pace with the business.
Chrissy joined embecta just months before the 2022 spin. The General Counsel’ s first request was simple and urgent: implement a contract lifecycle management system as soon as possible. modern-counsel. com 53