The Presentation Practice

I help legal experts create memorable, high-impact presentations to grow their practices and become go-to advisors in their fields.

Visit my "Featured" section to learn more about how I can help.

Principal Trainer & Presentation Designer

Foodwit

Senior Regulatory Consultant

I helped food companies sort out regulatory and food-safety compliance so they could focus on what they do best: getting great products to market.

Principal, Regulatory Compliance & Affairs

Blue Apron

Senior Counsel, Regulatory Compliance and Government Affairs

Brooklyn Law School

Adjunct Professor of Food Law

Bayer

Legal Counsel, Women's Health

Novartis

Senior Associate Director - Drug Regulatory Affairs Advertising & Promotion

Hogan Lovells

Associate, FDA Practice Group

Assistant Chief Counsel for Food

Need to give your upcoming presentation a makeover? Book a 1:1 Presentation Tune-Up with me to make the most of your next big talk. Just DM me and I'll send the details.

***
Hi, I'm Val. I help experts in the legal field create signature presentations that establish their authority and build new opportunities.

After years of giving forgettable, information-packed presentations as a practicing lawyer, I discovered a huge training gap between legal expertise and audience influence: most of us were taught to analyze and argue, but not to inspire, motivate, and give practical guidance in the real world. So I developed a systematic approach to transform expert knowledge into presentations that make an impact.

As a presentation consultant and designer, I serve experts in the legal industry in two ways:

1️⃣ Individual Experts: I’ll work with you to design a compelling presentation that positions you as the go-to authority in your field and builds your pipeline. My clients include Am Law 100 attorneys, legal consultants, and coaches who serve the legal industry.

💬 “Working with Val transformed my Billing Workshop presentation from good to EXCEPTIONAL. She has an incredible talent for helping lawyers showcase their subject matter expertise in a way that captivates their audiences and helps to generate future speaking opportunities. If you're ready to elevate your signature presentation, speaking presence and establish yourself as a thought leader, Val is your secret weapon." - Molly Kremer, The Billing Coach (former Big Law attorney & billing expert)

2️⃣ Law Firms: I provide presentation coaching and workshops to elevate professional development, BD, and conference ROI across your teams.

💬 “Val's presentation-skills workshop was truly transformative for our team. Her insightful guidance and practical tips have empowered us to communicate with confidence and impact. I highly recommend Val's workshop to anyone seeking to enhance their presentation skills; it's an invaluable investment in professional development.” -M.S., Global Sustainability Director

📚 I also offer a comprehensive self-paced course for those who prefer to implement my frameworks on their own timeline, and specialized training for in-house counsel who need to present internally with confidence.

Whether you're an expert who’s ready to become the go-to advisor in your field, or a firm looking to elevate your team's legal presentation skills, I'd love to help you turn your expertise into authority.

✉️ Send me a DM to learn more about working together.

Lawyers worry that sharing client stories in their presentations is "too salesy."
So they keep delivering talks that do nothing to generate business.

Last week, I was speaking to a group of partners about using storytelling to drive BD conversations.

One partner raised her hand: "OK, I get that I need to share examples of how I help clients. But CLE organizers always say 'absolutely no selling.' So how am I supposed to tell stories without being promotional?"

Fair question. But it points to a basic misunderstanding about what an "informational" presentation should accomplish.

Attendees don't just want the facts. They want you to curate what's most relevant to them right now and show what it means in practice.

But because most lawyers are terrified of sounding salesy, they strip out anything real or personal. 

When you do this, your audience walks away with information but no clarity on what to do next. And worse, they associate you with that confusion.

That's not how we educate anyone. And it's definitely not how we build the trust that leads to new relationships.

Your job as a presenter is to help your audience move forward. That requires illustrating what's possible through real examples: stories behind major key cases, hypos and composites, and, yes, client wins and breakthroughs from your practice.

Including client examples isn’t pitching. It’s showing your audience how you think, how you approach problems, and what it's like to work with someone who gets them.

Don't let fear of being "salesy" stop you from being helpful.

***

Hi, I'm Val. I'm a former lawyer turned presentation coach and designer. I help lawyers and subject-matter experts give great presentations that build their brands and practices.

For more simple tips on engaging expert presentations, get the free email course here: tinyurl.com/legal-presos

Valerie Madamba, JD - The Legal Presentation Coach

Lawyer turned presentation designer & coach // Helping lawyers turn presentations into pipeline // Former U.S. BigLaw, government, & in-house lawyer // Speaker & workshop facilitator

Open article: how to give a great legal presentation by tinyurl.com

My slides crashed the other day.
Right at the start of a presentation about presentation skills, naturally.

My reaction wasn't 100% polished, and I was a deer in headlights for a few seconds. 

But it didn't matter. I managed to keep going and to deliver the training pretty much as planned without my slides.

Here's why things worked out OK, even though I fumbled for a moment:

1 - I always use a simple, story-based structure.

Setting, three main acts that illustrate the big idea, resolution. 

When your content follows a clear narrative instead of being a series of topic lists, you'll remember where you are and where you're going. Both you and your audience stay on track when glitches happen.

2 - I always have a backup notecard.

Just keywords and little sketches to anchor my key ideas. 

The notecard in the photo is my guide for one of my storytelling trainings. It makes no sense to anyone else, but it has all the cues I need to deliver a 45-minute workshop.

Way better than reading through a text outline or trying to reconstruct your talk from memory in real time.

3 - I practice without my slides.

I rehearse many times and know my story inside and out. My slides are there to support me, not to be the presentation.

In this particular training, I ended up going out of sequence from what I'd outlined. That's OK! I knew my material well enough to adjust on the fly.

Practicing this way gives me so much confidence, even when things don't go as planned.

This worked for one of my recent keynote clients too. 

When her beautiful slides (my babies!) didn’t work perfectly on the big day, she shrugged it off and kept going. Her audience was still super engaged, gave her rave reviews, and lined up after to keep the conversation going.

>>> Bonus tip: when your tech fails, don't narrate that failure too much.

I'm still working on this one. But resist the urge to fill that awkward silence with "Okay, let me just try to get my slides back up . . . eek, where's that folder? . . . just a minute heeeeere . . ."

Take a few seconds to troubleshoot calmly. If it doesn't work quickly, move on. Just like you’ve practiced.

Your audience will be sympathetic, and they’ll value your composure more than they'll miss your slides (which they've never seen before anyway).

Have your slides ever failed you during a big presentation? How did you handle it?

***

Hi, I'm Val. I'm a former lawyer turned presentation coach and designer. 
Get the free course for brand-building legal presentations: https://lnkd.in/ehMfBnV5

Myth: great presentations use fewer slides.

That's an old rule of thumb for better investor pitches.

But for most of us, applying that idea rigidly is a bad idea. 
Especially if you're trying to explain nuanced ideas in a 60-minute CLE.

Here's what happens when presenters obsess about minimizing slide count: 

They try to pack as much information as possible onto each slide.
Then, they end up reading those overstuffed slides to their audience. 

No one wants to sit through that.

So you should ignore arbitrary slide-count rules.

When I design decks for webinars, trainings, and conferences, I often deliver way more slides than expected.

And it works.

(One recent client delivered a 60-slide training and got hired for a follow-up on the spot.)

When you're not afraid to use plenty of slides, you:
▪️Create a brisk, engaging pace
▪️Give your ideas room to breathe
▪️Stay on track without reading walls of text

So instead of worrying about your slide count:
▪️Pare back your content to your key messages
▪️Put only what you need on each slide to orient yourself and your audience
▪️Then use as many slides as you need to tell your story and hold attention

Slides are free, but attention is not.

You have to earn audience engagement. 

And when you give your ideas all the space they need, you'll do exactly that.

****

Hi, I'm Val. I'm a former lawyer turned legal-presentation coach and designer. I help lawyers, practice groups, and firms create great presentations that build credibility, visibility, and new opportunities.

For better presentations that grow your practice (without feeling sales-y), get my 5-part email course. It’s free at “Visit my website” above.

Here's how my client turned a small, unpaid compliance CLE into a training contract with a big firm.

Bea (name changed) came to me with tons of great material.
But it wasn’t organized in any clear way.

So it felt like the standard, dry conference lecture.
And Bea knew she and her audience deserved better.

We got to work on her outline right away.

Here’s what we did that made the biggest impact:

▪️Crafted a hyper-focused core message that got to the heart of her audience’s primary challenge
▪️Organized her content into three clear pillars that illustrated that core message
▪️Created moments for the audience to actively reflect on and integrate her ideas throughout

Now the talk showcased Bea's perspective, not just her knowledge.

She was ready to fill it with sharper examples and stories that would move her audience to a better place.

She delivered the talk to a small audience.
They were super engaged and gave her great feedback.

Bea did the talk again, and word got out.

A major firm was looking to hire a new trainer on her topic, and it invited her to do a demo.

Bea used the content we’d created as her starting point.
She nailed the demo and won the contract.

All because she wouldn’t settle for giving a standard legal presentation.

That’s not a lucky break. It’s simply what happens when your presentations do justice to your expertise. 

I love working with legal experts to get this kind of result.

So I put together a five-part course on giving legal presentations that create new opportunities.

You can get it free here: https://lnkd.in/ehMfBnV5

Your presentation could be life-changing. 
But your slides don't fully reflect that.

That's how I felt about so many of my presentations in the past.
So much to share, yet I wanted my big ideas to feel stickier, more compelling.

And when Molly Kremer - The Billing Coach came to me for support with her signature billing workshop, she was thinking the same.

Molly's the coach who takes the pain out of law-firm billing. 
(If you're a timekeeper, you know the problem well.)

When we started working together, she already had a proven, meticulously researched, transformative method. Her workshop worked. But she knew there was room to make it even more powerful.

Here's what we did to ensure her presentation matched her value:

■ Combed through her material to refine the billing story she wanted to tell
■ Created a high-impact opening sequence to build connection and engagement right away
■ Culled her supporting content so her signature tactics would shine
■ Created new slides to reflect Molly's updated storyline and polished brand

What she had to say after we wrapped her project:

“Working with Val transformed my Billing Workshop presentation from good to EXCEPTIONAL. She has an incredible talent for helping lawyers showcase their expertise in a way that captivates audiences and helps generate future speaking opportunities. If you're ready to elevate your signature presentation and establish yourself as a thought leader, Val is your secret weapon."

I'm telling you: Molly's workshop goes deep. It's not just about gritting your teeth and scrounging for time to bill. She gets to the root causes of why billing feels so hard and gives you real tools to permanently create better billing habits.

If you're not already following Molly or haven't yet brought her in to fix your firm's billing challenges, today's the day!

Too many legal presentations and webinars feel pointless.

But yours can stand out as relevant, timely, and engaging.

It’s pretty simple.

Start by identifying the two things that even seasoned presenters forget:

1 - The challenge your audience is facing right now
2 - How you're distinctly equipped to help them with that challenge

That’s the intersection that matters, and it’s what your presentation should be about.

Not just a “litigation roundup.” 
Not just another list of topics.

Focus on where your solution meets your audience’s needs, and you’ll have a presentation worth giving.

P.S. If you're looking to make better legal presentations that resonate with your people, this is a great place to start: https://lnkd.in/ehMfBnV5

Every law firm talks about client experience.
But too few actually design for it.

That's a missed opportunity, because the firms that get this right will hold onto their best clients and turn them into their most consistent advocates.

A great client experience isn't fluff. It's in the practical details that make working with you simpler and more satisfying.

-Streamlined onboarding that feels effortless 
-Proactive updates on project status 
-Well designed, clearly-written deliverables

These elements will look different for every practice and client type, but the fundamentals stay the same: removing friction and creating trust and confidence.

Your presentations are part of this experience.

Every time you present, you're demonstrating how you work. 

And that CLE or webinar might be the first significant touchpoint your potential clients have with you.

If your presentation feels overstuffed with information, isn’t sharply tailored for the audience, and leaves people scratching their heads about next steps, that's exactly what they'll expect from working with you.

No matter how pragmatic and clear you actually are.

But if your presentation feels focused, reveals how you think and operate, and points them toward achievable solutions, you're illustrating the experience they want as a client.

So make that first demo count. Let them see and feel the clarity, consideration, and precision you bring to your everyday practice.

The client experience doesn't start when they sign the engagement letter. 
It starts the second they hear you speak.

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