[2] Stanchfield began her career in theater, and made her television debut in an episode of CBS crime drama, Diagnosis: Murder in 2000.

In feature films, she had the female lead role opposite Josh Duhamel in the 2004 adaptation of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, and co-starred as Nathan Fillion's character wife in the comedy-drama Waitress (2007).

In 2007 she played Amelia Joffe (replacing Annie Wersching for two weeks in May) in the ABC daytime soap opera, General Hospital.

[7][8] She plays the role of Abby Whelan, the investigator in the lead character firm, and later the White House Press Secretary.

[11] In 2017, she directed all six episodes of Gladiator Wanted, a web series that debuted prior to the sixth-season premiere and features Guillermo Diaz as Huck, Katie Lowes as Quinn, Cornelius Smith Jr. as Marcus and George Newbern as Charlie.

She appeared in the crime horror thriller Carnage Park (2016),[14][15] that premiered at Sundance Film Festival, and co-starred opposite Raza Jaffrey and Stana Katic in The Rendezvous (2017).