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Rather than trying to solve everything at once, Chrissy focused on immediate needs and early wins. She automated the North America NDA process, trained executive assistants, and built workflows that allowed NDAs to move forward without legal review when no material changes were made.“ That was a pretty big impact for it being a small win,” she says.
From there, priorities multiplied. E-discovery. E-billing. Vendor setup. Where possible, the team leveraged technology relationships. Chrissy partnered closely with procurement to support agreements critical to standing up the business, including HR benefits, payroll, IT systems, supply chain, and other foundational services.
Technology as a connector
As her role evolved, Chrissy moved from contract specialist to architect of embecta’ s legal technology ecosystem. She led implementations across CLM, e-billing, and e-discovery, expanding her reach across the organization.“ It has given me the opportunity to work with functions that I had not partnered with in the past,” she says.
Working closely with IT reshaped how she views implementation.“ Most people think IT is just this phantom,” she adds. Through hands-on collaboration, she gained a deeper appreciation for how legal technology affects IT’ s day-to-day work and how shared ownership drives better outcomes.
Her partnerships now extend across procurement, marketing, sales, medical affairs, and beyond. The CLM transformation, in particular, meant broad engagement. When embecta decided to move away from its initial provider, Chrissy made sure stakeholders across functions and regions had a voice in the selection process.“ We made sure that they had feedback. They got to see options and even participated in proof of concepts,” she explains.
Those relationships paid off.“ Colleagues have learned my work ethic, and they’ ve learned they can trust me,” she shares. Even when Chrissy doesn’ t have the answer immediately, they know she’ ll find it.“ They know I can find a person on the legal team who can get them their answer.”
The wagon wheel approach
Chrissy often describes legal operations with a wagon wheel analogy.“ My view of the wagon wheel, with legal operations at the center, doesn’ t mean we’ re the most important piece. It means we’ re the support that brings the legal team together and connects us with the business,” she clarifies.
Legal operations connects legal and finance on billing, vendor setup, and payment issues. It links legal with procurement, supply chain, and R & D. Chrissy’ s team meets regularly to discuss these functions and align on upcoming initiatives with the right legal resources early.
The goal is clarity and access.“ The business knows they can come to one point of contact on the legal team. We may not have the answer, but we’ ll connect them with whoever does,” she highlights. Without that central hub, the wheel stops moving. 54