Facilitated by Jenn Smuts, Practice Growth Lead, Litigation & Dispute Resolution,
K&L Gates
Carlotta C. Gmachl, Senior Business Development Manager at Warner Norcross + Judd LLP, stood out as LSSO’s 2026 Rising Star Award winner because her work reflects what legal sales and service increasingly demands: commercial creativity, measurable impact, and a disciplined understanding of client need. The Rising Star Award recognizes emerging professionals with 15 years or less in the legal industry who have made a measurable impact on sales or service activities and demonstrated exceptional promise, commitment, and organizational impact.
What distinguishes Carlotta is that she did not simply support business development activity; she built new pathways for growth. Her relaunch of the firm’s International Business Practice Group helped reposition a Michigan-centered law firm for a broader global market. Drawing on her international background and relationships, she helped create a deliberate program for foreign companies exploring U.S. expansion – particularly in sectors such as automotive, battery technology, manufacturing, and mobility.
The program addressed a practical client problem: companies entering the United States needed clarity, sequencing, and pricing certainty. Rather than offering the traditional “it depends,” Carlotta worked with attorneys to develop a predictable pricing model for key onboarding needs, giving prospective clients a clearer roadmap for incorporation, immigration, tax, employment, benefits, real estate, environmental, and related legal services. Since the program’s launch in August 2025, Warner onboarded six international companies as ongoing clients and has averaged one new foreign client per month.
The measurable impact is significant. In 2025, Carlotta was credited with $782,402 in new business for her law firm. She also organized six international delegation visits from Canada, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, and Belgium, bringing more than 100 foreign business prospects directly into the firm’s offices. That work created revenue, visibility, and a more durable platform for future growth.
Carlotta’s contribution also reflects a modern understanding of client experience. The international program gives companies a simpler, more confident entry point into the U.S. legal market. Her Supper Club Program similarly grew from listening to clients who wanted to understand what peers were seeing and doing. The format created a focused forum for in-house leaders and attorneys to exchange practical insight, and early events generated new matters and a new firm client.
Carlotta recently launched a Video Clinic that shows the same pattern: identify friction, design a practical solution, and make adoption easy. When attorneys had tools for video content but were not using them, she helped create a structured clinic that offered coaching, production and messaging support, and an efficient path to market-facing visibility.
• Listen for repeated client questions; they often point to scalable service opportunities.
• Pair creative ideas with measurable outcomes – revenue, new clients, prospects, matters, or adoption.
• Make business development easier for lawyers by removing barriers and creating clear processes.
• Use pricing and service design as client experience tools, not just financial mechanics.
• Look beyond traditional markets; meaningful growth may sit just outside the firm’s existing comfort zone.