Legal Leaders Exchange - Podcast episode 31

In this episode of Legal Leaders Exchange, Jennifer McIver of ELM Solutions is joined by Catrine Chevalier, Legal Operations Specialist at DHL, and Stacy Lettie, Chief of Staff at Organon, for a candid and insightful conversation on how lean legal operations teams can deliver outsized strategic value. Drawing from their experiences in global organizations with limited resources, Catrine and Stacy share how curiosity, focus, and a proactive mindset can drive meaningful change, even without generous budgets or sizable headcounts.

The discussion explores how small teams can influence legal strategy, optimize processes, and leverage data to make smarter decisions. From navigating complex business unit structures to advocating for impactful roles, this episode offers practical advice and inspiration for legal ops professionals at any stage of their journey.

Highlights of the discussion include:

• How small legal ops teams at DHL and Organon structure themselves to support global legal departments
• The mindset shift from tactical execution to strategic influence—and how to lead with impact
• Real-world examples of using invoice data and billing compliance to drive cost savings and vendor accountability
• The importance of listening to stakeholders to uncover hidden needs and prioritize initiatives
• Why starting small and iterating can lead to long-term transformation and stronger stakeholder buy-in  

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Transcript

Greg Corombos

Hello and welcome to another episode of Legal Leaders Exchange. In this 31st episode, Small Teams, Big Impact: Strategic Legal Ops with DHL and Organon, Jen McIver from Wolters Kluwer ELM Solutions is joined by Catrine Chevalier, Legal Operations Specialist at DHL, and Stacy Lettie, Chief of Staff at Organon. Together, they discuss how legal operations teams can drive significant results and strategic value without big budgets or expensive headcount. Join us as they share how focus, curiosity, and a strategic mindset can drive real results within a global organization.

Jennifer McIver

Thank you, Greg. I'm really excited today to be here with Stacy and with Catrine and thank you, first, to the both of you for taking your time for being here. I know you guys are extremely busy.

Catrine Chevalier

My pleasure.

Stacy Lettie

Sure, no problem. Thank you for having us.

Jennifer McIver

Absolutely. What I really want to do today is I want to set a little context before we start. I don't normally do this, but I think it's just important to go back in time a little bit. I've been with Walters Kluwer now since about year and a half, and right out of the shoot, when I joined Wolters Kluwer, I had the privilege of going to CLOC. So two years ago, Catrine, you were one of my first podcasts. And it's so great to be able to come back and to have another conversation with you. I know a lot has changed. We talked a lot about rate negotiations. You were doing a lot on the billing analyst side, and I'm really looking forward to diving in, because I think a strategic mindset is really how you got to where you are today. So, thank you for being willing, and it's going to be awesome to talk to you again, Stacy, we got to talk at the next CLOC, so just barely, not even a year ago, although it feels like that long and it was really great to talk about enabling strategic legal ops. And one of the things that really resonated with me while we were there, while we were on stage, you did an amazing job with stopping and really making sure that everybody in the audience understood that this is for all levels of legal operations, for all sizes of teams. And I think that's really important today, because Stacy, your team is different than some of the mega legal ops teams. And Catrine, even at DHL, you're structured a little bit differently. You have counterparts in the supply chain that are structured a little bit differently, and so you're up against different challenges that I think that other corporate legal departments can really resonate with. So that's where I want to start today, is to take a step in. And I'll start with you, Stacy. It would be great if you could talk a little bit about the size of your legal team, your legal ops team, and just how it's structured. So that way, as we frame today, folks understand the perspective that you're bringing.

Stacy Lettie

I think this part of the conversation is really important, because I do have a tiny little team. We have a large legal team of close to 200 lawyers, a few paralegals and a couple admins, mostly attorneys. And I work in a company of 10,000 people, 10,000 plus, actually, but my legal operations team is two and three quarters people. I have myself. I have a full time Assistant Director of Data Intelligence and Legal Operations, who does a variety of things. And I also have a semi-full time offshore resource that I pay monthly for, that I don't know what I would do without. He really focuses on vendor management and helping me to run my billing system, but that is it. And so, when we talk about some of these strategic initiatives, my experience has been that very often we're sitting in these large lecture halls and listening to people from Marsh or DHL or Google or Meta or something talking. And these are teams that have the luxury of big budgets and lots of resources. And some of the things that we talk about are a lot easier to accomplish when you have that. And so, I think we unintentionally exclude people from the conversation when we don't acknowledge that.

Jennifer McIver

I absolutely agree, and Catrine, let's talk about it. Stacy, you mentioned DHL, and I know it's a little different for you at DHL, Catrine, so let 's chat about that.

Catrine Chevalier

Yeah, we are mighty, but small, is what I would say. I have a team of three. It's myself, I have an e-billing administrator, and I have an offshore resource which I cannot live without. Not only does he support our vendor management, but he helps us with all of these different technology initiatives that we have going on, just because we need that additional support administrative end. But we support five different business units, and I had to pause for a second when I was looking at it, because it's just amazing. Can you imagine the amount of people that we have to support? I have a team of 63 attorneys. Some are paralegals, some are administrative staff, but this small team has to support five different business units for DHL, which is global, thousands of customers, hundreds of thousands of employees. It's just mind boggling when you step back and think how much you have to do with such a small team.

Jennifer McIver

And when we say five different business units, it's almost like five different sets of requirements for everything that you do.

Catrine Chevalier

Yes, five different org structures, different requirements. We have different laws that are in place. Especially when it comes to compliance and the regulatory aspects, each one is completely different. And our attorneys support across BU, so they have to be, I call it a Jack of all trades.

Jennifer McIver

That's important. And as we take a step back now, and just before we get into how you're doing it, which I think is going to be really relevant today, and I think your mindset and how you enable your teams, and how you enable yourself and position yourself within the legal team in your business is super important. But before we get there, let's just say I love doing this. We did this at CLOC so Stacy's familiar with this. Catrine, I know I might have thrown this on you, but I want to just talk about the definition of what does it mean to be strategic in legal ops. And if you can not use the word “strategic,” I love it even more so Catrine, I'm gonna go to you.

Catrine Chevalier

I would say it's not being a firefighter, right? We don't want to be reactive. We want to be proactive. And with that, comes planning. And when you do your planning, you want to make sure that it aligns with your organizational goals, so that way you drive the most impact from those different initiatives that you take off.

Jennifer McIver

I like it. I think that's awesome. Don't be a firefighter. Stacy, how about you?

Stacy Lettie

What does it mean to be strategic, without saying you're strategic? I think it means, it's hard, because I feel like Catrine really took some of mine, but it's really looking at that your initiative, whatever that is going to have, and making sure that whatever you're doing is going to change something. I think being strategic necessarily means that something has to change, and hopefully it's changing For the better.

Jennifer McIver

I like that, Stacy, and I think that's a great segue to something has to change. You are currently at Organon and you came on as the Chief of Staff and Legal Operations. To me, that's what everyone wants to do. It seems like it's the ultimate strategic position. That's where you want to get to. But I think your first few days were a little bit different than what you thought. I know we talked a little about this before, but I think it's great to share, because how you handled it, to me, is really a big deal, because you need to be in that strategic position. So can you tell me? Can you just chat for everybody here, a little bit about what it looked like and how you made it through?

Stacy Lettie

Yeah. So I was really, really excited. This is definitely, being a Chief of Staff is what you dream about when you're in that Head of Legal Ops and you're thinking about what's next. You think, I'm going to be a Chief of Staff. I'm going to be the right hand to the General Counsel. And when I got to my first day, the outgoing Interim Chief of Staff, who was previously, I think, a paralegal, had served as interim. The other Chief of Staff had already moved on and handed me a four page list of meetings that I was supposed to attend. When I pressed I realized that most of these meetings I was just supposed to be sitting there taking notes. There wasn't really a substantive reason for me to be in these meetings, and they weren't really accomplishing anything, and I wasn't even attending them in the stead of the General Counsel. I probably spent the first month dipping my toe into all of the things that I was supposed to be doing, and that included making agendas for meetings and a whole bunch of super administrative stuff. And believe me when I say I am not above doing anything, and especially in the company I work for is very startup-y, so I'm not above rolling my sleeves up and digging in, but there was nothing strategic about this list of things that I was supposed to be doing. And so I just gathered my information. And I didn't jump too quickly, but within about a month to six weeks, I went to my boss and I said, these are the things that I'm being asked to do. These are the things I think I should be doing. How do you feel about this? And he just looked at me and he said, You don't need to be at any of those meetings, because this is where I want you to focus. And so I think what I learned about that is when you step into a new role and you have a vision for how you think you should be approaching this, after you've gathered the information you have to advocate for yourself, for your role and for the goals that you're setting for this new role. What do I want to achieve? And how do I want to achieve it? And do these things that they're asking me to do really forward that goal?

Jennifer McIver

I think that's important, and to me, that's inspiration. So, I hope for those that are listening to really take that and to feel comfortable to listen and learn and advocate for yourself. I appreciate you telling that story, Stacy. I find it, I shouldn't say, humorous, but I do find it a little bit amusing, just in the aspect, as you know, you're just not an agenda creator. So Catrine, I think for you, it's a little different, right? Because you've progressed within your role at DHL. And I'd love to talk a little bit about that, because when we first spoke over a year and a half ago, you were more in that e-billing analyst role, which now I think you have someone that has filled that role, and you've really progressed and transitioned to leading more programs. Can you talk about your mindset and just how you were able to do that?

Catrine Chevalier

When I started with DHL, it's actually a funny story. I started during COVID. Within the first week of me joining I was told that we were taking our e-billing system globally, and I was responsible for the launch and the training of this new tool, so I was kind of tossed into it, right? And I think my mindset going into it was that I need to be curious. I need to understand this tool. I need to understand the process, how it's going to help the team, and how this implementation is going to affect not only them, but our stakeholders, as well. I think starting out with that mindset really helped me to apply in other areas outside of e-billing. So, it was now thinking about, how do we manage our vendors? What type of reporting do we have going out to our team and really listening to my colleagues with their pain points and figuring out ways to solve them that really put me on this journey to move away from the e-billing role.

Jennifer McIver

I like that, and I think that that you've done a great job thinking about the impact. I know you, both of you said in the idea of what is strategic, it's about the impact. And that's exactly what you did, even as you were tossed into rolling out e-billing. And I implemented e-billing systems for a legal tech company for eight and a half years. I get it or didn't do the implementations for eight and a half years, but definitely did enough to know that it's no easy feat, and that's just a hard thing to be thrown into. So let's talk a little bit and move back to the idea of becoming strategic when having limited resources or competing priorities, it's not always just that, hey, I have this great, big, grand plan. I have all the resources. Everybody's going to be on board. There's a lot more to it. And so Catrine, can you talk about how the team you manage right now, you're carrying out a lot of tactical work. Frankly, I think we've had discussions. Some of it might even be considered repetitive admin type work. You're just doing it to get it done. How do you lead your team? Or should I even say, enable them to come up with ideas and to think more strategically, even though those items or tasks probably just still have to be done?

Catrine Chevalier

Ways, I encourage my team of thinking of ways to do things better. Because I think when they have their curiosity and they really understand these different processes, even when it's repetitive, it allows them to come up with more ways on how to do it better, or if there's a tool to solve their issue. I'm always encouraging them to take certain trainings or to revisit a process. We usually do this every year, in order to find ways for efficiencies or to remove things off of their plate, so that way they can take on more tasks that they find more engaging and where I feel we have the most impact on how we can help the team. And I think for the past year, I found quite a bit of success using that tactic, because it helps me, it helps the team, but it also helps lead us towards those long-term goals that we have.

Jennifer McIver

That's awesome. And Stacy, what advice do you have for legal ops professionals who just have the leaner teams and you're buried in more of the day-to-day tactical? And maybe you find it a little bit difficult to think strategically or to figure out what it looks like?

Stacy Lettie

You're happening to asking me that on a day that I'm struggling with exactly that. One of the things that I have been doing, with various degrees of success, I fully admit, is I'm trying to identify resources in other departments that I can lean into, defining these smaller projects. For example, building an intake form out of Microsoft forms. Either finding someone on my team that has a particular interest in getting – and by my team, I mean the legal team as a whole – or going to my IT department and saying, Hey, I need a resource to help me do X. Unfortunately, a lot of times I feel like, what happens is I end up doing these things on my own and spending my Sunday building a form out of Microsoft Office.

Jennifer McIver

I'm shaking my head for those listening, I'm just saying no to Sunday work.

Stacy Lettie

It's not a good thing. But I end up teaching myself a lot of skills that I think I wouldn't otherwise. I’d need to know if I was somewhere else, and perhaps that makes me a more valuable Chief of Staff, because I have to learn these things on my own. And I think the reality is, as much as I would like to, say, go get a resource, don't work on the weekends, don't work at night, all that kind of stuff, being a Chief of Staff and being a strategic leader sometimes means that you have to go outside of your comfort zone. And you have to learn new skills that you might, if you have a lean team, you have to learn new skills that you might ordinarily not need to learn. You may have to be a really good example for the people that work for you about stretching yourself and doing other things. And the good news about that is that when you do get to a position where you do have more resources, you do have more money, you will be a better leader because you've done it yourself. And so I think you can structure your projects more efficiently. This job is not for the faint of heart. Being strategic is not easy most times, and being strategic and being a leader in a lean department is really challenging, but it's also really rewarding, because when you look back on what you've created, you've really created it.

Jennifer McIver

You put your time and the effort in, and you can see that it's almost like, I don't know if they still do house purchases on sweat equity, but you had to go in and you had to do the internal painting, or you had to do some of that finished work. I think that there's a sense of pride and a sense of accomplishment knowing that that you made it through that. So, Stacy, talking about that, and I know that you said that today's the day you're having to work through that. I know that you've done a lot, even just with invoice review and invoice compliance. And I think that's something that it's great to touch on. Because having impact doesn't have to be this huge, right now, overnight, we saved, you know, $100 million and we took all these less hours to do stuff. But rather, it can be iterations. Can you talk a little bit about that, about just using what you have and looking at it and iterating?

Stacy Lettie

Yeah, I use this as an example all the time when I'm talking about making an impact in a small way and keep building on that. At my last role, not in this role, but at another role, and I actually have done a fair amount of the same thing in this role as well, but one of the things that I always do first when I'm in a role like this is look at their billing system. Look at the invoicing. Look at what we're paying to our vendors and start to dig into: is what we're paying in our line items consistent with our billing guidelines? Which seems really, really simple, but you wouldn't believe how much money you waste as a department in paying for things you shouldn't pay for. Every time someone charges you for research, charges for, you know, $7, that adds up over time, and it's really amazing. And when you talk about things that can have impact, everybody wants to save money, and it's a measurable, visual thing that you can show somebody that you accomplished really quickly. So, one of the things that I've done is go through and just manually audit some invoices. Or do, if your system allows you to, do a search and a reporting on specific types of line items like research, administrative support, whatever the codes that they use, and start to build in rules in your billing system to catch some of this stuff. And some of it you can do using technology. Some of it is just retraining your bill reviewers to catch some of this stuff and send it back. But the end result is, if you are able to lean into your technology to help you catch some of this stuff, you can make a tremendous impact very quickly with not a ton of effort. And that's something you really can do on your own, and you don't need a team of people to do.

Jennifer McIver

I like that, and it does make me think. And you guys are probably going to think I'm really crazy for saying this, but it reminds me of having a toddler and needing to put zucchini and carrots into your baked goods or into your pasta sauce to get them to eat the vegetables. I really feel like going in there and doing that analysis, little by little, helps take away the sting sometimes that attorneys have with, we don't want to do these mass reductions. And Catrine wanting to turn this over to you, to talk a little bit about even building in data, right? And bringing that into the conversation, because attorneys know what they should be paying, right? But I think that there's a lot of good that we can put in, just like putting in those veggies. So, do you want to talk a little bit about what you've done with inserting that into the routine for your attorneys,

Catrine Chevalier

I know for us, we're starting to use the invoicing and the timekeeper data. We're using it in our negotiations. So, whether it's litigation or trying to negotiate a flat fee, we can use that data to help give us leverage and to get a more favorable rate. It sets the scale for us. We've also used this data during law firm reviews because that also helps you on both sides really drive what's the spend and where's the opportunities for improvements, and to see what added value a law firm can actually provide just from your invoicing data, which is great. As far as for my team. It also helps when we're looking at internal resource allocations, like reviewing those different line items. Is there an opportunity to insource, or is there other low risk work that we could possibly assign to a law firm and take that off of our attorneys’ plate so they can focus on more high risk work?

Jennifer McIver

And I think it's important as you're starting to do this, whether you're starting with just iterating small, with catching compliance issues on invoices, whether you're starting to insert more data, those all, in the end, have impact. And I think, to me, when you're talking about having legal operations teams that are smaller, and having legal operations teams that are supporting multiple business divisions, it's really important to do those little things. And sometimes I think that folks don't feel like they're making that big of an impact. So, I just thought I'd turn this a little bit, and as we start to wrap up today, to talk about how you convey those small pieces into larger impact, or how you convey that you're making that impact, whether that's to internal stakeholders or your own team. Catrine maybe to you, how are you conveying back the impact that your team is making, or the smaller changes are building upon for more impact?

Catrine Chevalier

It definitely helps to show it. Whether, if you have a Power BI, and I've never been the greatest at Power BI, but now I am. Because, like Stacy stated, you have to become that subject matter expert, right? You have to become this technology person when you have limited resources. But just demonstrating those little wins really helps build upon the impact that you're going to have down the road. It helps you get that buy-in like, hey, we saved, I don't know, XYZ, in six months of just doing spot checking on invoices or actually implementing and holding our law firms to our outside counsel guidelines. Now let's move on to the next stage, where let's take another technology, and layer it upon that and continue driving towards these goals. Low hanging fruit, start there, and just continue on building, building and building the impact.

Jennifer McIver

And how about you, Stacy? How do you go back, whether it's to your GC or even your, I know it's just two people on your team, but just to show that, yes, the impact is happening?

Stacy Lettie

I think being able to create lakes of data is really important, and I am, at the moment, in my current role, still working on the creation of those. But I do know that once I get – and whether or not that is collecting matter data, where is it coming from? What part of your company is it coming from? What location is coming from? Identifying up front, maybe two or three data points that you want to start collecting. Don't try to, what do they always say? Don't try to boil the ocean, which is such a weird saying, but it is true. There's a tendency to want to create all this data, but there's only a couple things that that your boss probably wants to know. Where are we against budget? Where's the work coming from? Who are we supporting most often? Because that's where you're going to start to try to identify where you need to resource, where you need to hire people, where you need to move some people around. So, really starting to identify, you kind of have to back into it, identify the data points that you think you want to report on, and then figure out, how do I go about creating enough data to make that a meaningful report? And that will inform your next step, okay, I need to start creating this data. How do I collect it? Do I build an intake system? Do I get a piece of software, what do I do? And you just have to go through that analysis of, if I want to know x, what do I need to do to get there?

Jennifer McIver

I think that's important. And it's this gap analysis. When you start pulling the reports and start pulling the data that you know is important, that's going to tell a story, do you have data in those fields, are you able to fill in those blanks? Now, Catrine for you, just out of curiosity, how do you handle data with five different business units? Is it all the same, or is it completely different?

Catrine Chevalier

Well, we tried to make it all the same, right? That's where we have our manage matter management system, in order for us to get data in a structured way that we can create reporting that is similar across all of the business units. So that is definitely key, because if not, how would you put all that data together in a way where you can have meaningful reporting to tell a story? So that's a good starting point. If you do not have a way to structure your data, definitely take a look at that and see whether it's how it's formatted, where it's collected, how it's collected and when it's collected, in order to, like Stacy was saying, have a data lake to have the data to tell that story,

Jennifer McIver

I think that's great. I think that really does take us through a progression. And I think data right now is absolutely key, especially as you're looking to build AI, as you're looking to leverage additional technology, having that foundation. And to me, that's really a message today is it's okay to start small. If anything, you need to start small. You need to take those incremental steps and really push through. And even though you don't think that it's very high impact because it just seems so little, it really is, in the end, going to turn into that. Where I'd like to leave today is just to both of you, and either of you feel free to speak up first on this one: if you're looking at a small team, or a team that has a lot of different business units to cover, and they're just grappling and struggling with what can I do? How should I do this? What is your words of wisdom on how to, whether it is think strategically or to do something that moves them away from the administrative day to day?

Catrine Chevalier

I think, for me, the most important thing, our starting place, is to listen. If you listen to your stakeholders, they will tell you what they need without them even realizing it. Just taking those key points will help you get an outline of how you can plan to be more strategic, because we just don't want to make changes. We want to make meaningful, impactful changes that not only help the legal team, but our other external stakeholders, but just listening is key for me.

Jennifer McIver

Stacy, did Catrine steal your answer again?

Stacy Lettie

She did steal mine!

Jennifer McIver

To be honest, I knew that both of you guys were gonna say listening, which is why I didn't call out who to answer first. Stacy, do you have anything to add?

Stacy Lettie

I was being nice. I was being nice. Look where that got me! No, I think Catrine is 100% right. I think in any position your number one job is to literally go through your team, assuming you have practice areas or teams within your legal team, and be meeting with your stakeholders on a team-by-team basis, spend an hour or two to figure out where their pain points are and focus your first initiatives on some pain points that are easy ones to solve, and they can be anything from putting in a workflow that makes something really simple happen automatically or redrawing a process to make it make more sense, or just creating a form that someone can do something online instead of writing an email and it taking 10 extra clicks. Don't overthink what it means to be strategic. You really have to simplify it and just remember that every piece of impact that you make will have probably 10 times the impact you think it will.

Jennifer McIver

I love that. And Stacy, I'd be remiss to not say this: and strategic doesn't mean rushing into a CLM, right? What strategic is for one person is not strategic for somebody else. And I brought that up, Stacy, because I know you said in the beginning, at one point, you're like, Okay, we've got to do CLM, but you stopped and listened, and the direction changed once you listened, because you understood that.

Stacy Lettie

Right.

Jennifer McIver

And I like to put that out there, because I know we're a technology vendor ourselves here at Wolters Kluwer, but what folks should really focus on is dependent on what your stakeholders need and where you are in your maturity, and it's different. So, I do agree with you listening is it's the number one, yeah.

Stacy Lettie

And just because you think something should be the biggest priority doesn't necessarily mean it's the thing that's going to make the most impact. We go to these legal operations seminars and workshops, and we listen to webinars, and we think we know what's best, but it's legal operations. And what we do operationally is not a one size fits all, and it's really important to remember that what's right for Catrine's team might not be right for my team, and what's right for my team might not be ready for your team, whoever you are listening to this. And you really have to tailor your plans to what's going to have the most impact for your team.

Catrine Chevalier

Yes. And remember, Rome was out built in a day.

Stacy Lettie

Yes, I always forget that. I would have built it in a day.

Catrine Chevalier

Slow and steady wins the race.

Jennifer McIver

I like that. Well, Catrine and Stacy, I really appreciate, again, your time today, and really to take that step back and to talk about how to be strategic, especially with the smaller company, the smaller legal ops teams, not companies, but legal ops team, as well as those that have a lot of business units and just different things to think about. So, thank you. I really appreciate it, and I hope that those listening can take some of these nuggets today, because I think you guys have some expert insights and experience to share. So, thank you.

Catrine Chevalier

Thank you.

Stacy Lettie

Thank you.

Greg Corombos

Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Legal Leaders Exchange. A special thanks to our host, Jennifer McIver and our guests, Catrine Chevalier and Stacy Lettie, for sharing their valuable perspectives on how small legal ops teams can achieve a big impact. We hope this discussion provided you with actionable insights for your own organization. To ensure you never miss an episode, please subscribe to Legal Leaders Exchange on your favorite podcast platform. Join us again on our next episode for more conversations with leaders who are shaping the future of the legal industry.