Valerie Madamba // Legal Presentation Coach

The aesthetics of your presentations matter.

But you don't need any special design skills to make polished, non-janky slides that elevate your message.

To start: let's figure out a better way to use images.

Lawyers: want your presentations to leave your audience thinking, “I’ve got to work with that person!”?

I’d like to give you my simple but powerful framework that’s helped me and my clients:

🔥Create distinctive, engaging, and visually compelling Legal presentations in any context

🔥Get feedback like “Really awesome - you kept me engaged the entire time!”

🔥Generate leads and get noticed as an ideal partner

Without having to learn any complicated design tricks, change anything about your personality, or waste hours building elaborate slide decks.

This framework is ridiculously simple, but it works.

Click the link below to sign up for my FREE five-day email course where I lay out the keys to transforming your Legal presentations and give you practical tactics you can start implementing today.

Ready to get the playbook? >> https://bit.ly/3wOna5q

Valerie Madamba // Legal Presentation Coach Hi, I'm Val. I’m a lawyer, speaker, and Legal presentation trainer. With 15+ years of experience in the field, today I teach other lawyers to make amazing presentations that grow their practices and become go-to advisors in their fields.

Lawyers, don't miss out on this special bonus and new resources available when you join Legal Presentation Fundamentals.

When you join the course by 10pm EST tonight, you'll get FREE access to my new course, The Legal Workshop Blueprint, when it's released in March. This course is a must for anyone who delivers workshops, CLEs, or any other legal trainings.

Plus, members will also get weekly 1:1 access to private feedback from me—think of this as your personal presentation coach in your pocket!

And this is on top of the the 15% off and a free presentation review that you get when you sign up by 10pm EST tonight.

Ready to get started? >> course.valeriemadamba.com

Lawyers: I'd love to help you 1:1 make your next presentation a hit.

And new members of Legal Presentation Fundamentals get 15% off the course PLUS a free 1:1 presentation coaching session with me (but only until 10pm EST on Thursday).

Ready to learn more? >> course.valeriemadamba.com

Legal Presentation Fundamentals The only toolkit lawyers need to create engaging, memorable Legal presentations, quickly and easily.

Working with my Legal presentation clients 1:1 is the best part of my job.

I love helping lawyers transform each presentation from a "word salad" (as one subscriber described it) into a memorable, fun, engaging experience that they're excited to deliver.

And only this month, new members in my course get 15% off PLUS a free 1:1 presentation coaching review with me (typically $400).

Use your 1:1 review for an upcoming talk or save it for another one in the future—and you can even choose between scheduling a live video call with me OR getting my feedback via email and video recording (no meetings required!).

Ready to claim your spot? >> course.valeriemadamba.com

Legal Presentation Fundamentals The only toolkit lawyers need to create engaging, memorable Legal presentations, quickly and easily.

Lawyers, here's how to close your next conference presentation in a helpful, non-salesly way.

Give your audience instant links to two things:
1) Your contact info
2) A user-friendly resource to help them take the next step on your topic

That resource could be a checklist, cheat sheet, or easy-to-follow handout.

When you provide these links, you make it easy to both connect with you and implement your insights right away.

And by always sending your audience off with a concrete resource, you reinforce your value as a practical advisor.

Here's a simple way to provide these links in one neat package: add a slide with two QR codes, one linking to your contact info and the other to your resource. (In PowerPoint, you can use an add-in like QR4Office to insert QR codes fast.)

Then show this slide before your closing Q&A and call to action.

Have you tried using QR codes in your presentations?

Valerie Madamba // Legal Presentation Coach Hi, I'm Val. I’m a lawyer, speaker, and Legal presentation trainer. With 15+ years of experience in the field, today I teach other lawyers to make amazing presentations that grow their practices and become go-to advisors in their fields.

Here’s my exact process for planning any Legal presentation:

1️⃣ Profile your audience. Identify:
>> What they’re struggling with now
>> Where they want to be in the future
>> One way you can help them get where they want to be

2️⃣ Use your audience data to create one core message for your presentation.

3️⃣ Articulate your core message in a single sentence that summarizes 1) your proposed action and 2) its key benefits.

4️⃣ Divide your core message into ~3 key insights (this is where you’ll spend most of your time in a presentation).

5️⃣ Outline your presentation, focusing on these elements:
>> An opening scenario, question, or example to set the scene and establish your audience’s main challenge
>> A preview of what your audience will be able to do differently after your talk
>> 1-3 stories or other examples to bring each key insight to life
> A closing that reinforces how the audience’s future will be better with your solution
>> A clear call to action to leave your audience on an empowered note

6️⃣ When your outline is ~75% done, do a first run-through to check for awkward spots and fill in any substantive gaps.

7️⃣ Finalize your outline and supporting content.

8️⃣ Make your visual aids.
>> Before designing anything, make a rough storyboard of slides to amplify your main message and key points in your narrative.
>> Run through your content using your draft slides. Move slides around to better match your story and add or remove slides as needed.
>> Using text only, design your “essential” slides: core message, presentation structure, key insights, and prompts.
> Add optional visuals when they make your content clearer or more relevant.

9️⃣ Determine how you’ll follow up.
>> Convert your slides into a real, user-friendly document (if you’re leaving one).
>> Create a tool or resource to help your audience take the next step on your topic.

This works for me every time.

The final presentation might look completely different from what you first sketch out, but always lock in the fundamentals first, then move the pieces around later.

Systematic preparation is your escape from being a cookie-cutter Legal presenter.

Want the presentation-planning worksheet I use with my clients? Join my list below and get the download in your inbox.

https://bit.ly/3I5mdZ5

Valerie Madamba // Legal Presentation Coach Hi, I'm Val. I’m a lawyer, speaker, and Legal presentation trainer. With 15+ years of experience in the field, today I teach other lawyers to make amazing presentations that grow their practices and become go-to advisors in their fields.

Here’s one of the most powerful ways to start a Legal presentation:

Launch right into a challenging scenario—preferably one that will make your audience slightly uncomfortable.

Why?

As a presenter, your first job is to convince the audience that listening to you is the most important thing they can do at that moment.

Until you convince them of this, the audience is planning to multitask. They don’t really believe they need to stay present and listen to you. So you need to show them why they absolutely must.

And you’ll never make them care if you start with the legal background or your personal bio.

Instead, start with a relevant, appropriately tricky problem that will make them struggle.

▶ When the audience struggles, they confront their knowledge gaps.
▶ When they confront their knowledge gaps, they’ll start paying attention.
▶ When they pay attention, you’ll have the opportunity to show how you can help.

Let them safely grapple with a problem that matters to them. Then give them a tool and invite them to apply it. Finally, help consolidate what they learned, and send them off more competent and hopeful than when they walked in.

That's how a Legal presenter goes from talking head to trusted guide.

Lawyers: stop adding stock photos and clipart just to "spice up" your Legal presentation.

A great presentation should always be visual. But that doesn't mean all visuals are useful.

And the wrong visuals will cheapen even the most powerful message.

Remember: to make visuals work for you, always start by crafting a clear message.

Then choose only visuals that make that message clearer, more relevant, or more accessible for your audience.

Let's look at some of the most common visual mistakes Legal presenters make and how to fix them.

Here's one of the most common missteps lawyers make in presentations:

Starting with the statute.

Whether in a conference or in the boardroom, your audience did not show up for an academic statutory dissection.

You may start with the statute in your work, but bringing this approach to presentations is a sure way to lose your audience.

Instead, root your topic in the real world.

A few ideas for starting your talk:

🟢 Ask a question: "When you hear [problematic statutory phrase], what do you think that means?"
🟢 Turn the facts of a landmark case into a memorable anecdote illuminating your topic
🟢 Dive right into a challenging decision that your audience is likely to face, then ask how they would make their choice

You've already got the material you need to engage any audience.

Have the courage to lead with what matters to them, and they'll have a reason to keep listening.

Lawyers, stop giving presentations. Start facilitating instead.

In presentation mode, we read lists, describe slides, and give meandering overviews of hot topics.

No audience wants this. They only want to understand what a concept means for them.

And to understand something, they need to interact with it.

So think of yourself as a facilitator who helps your audience extract meaning and apply it to their reality.

Don’t just relay anecdotes - share part of a story and invite the audience to finish or retell it.

Pose lots of questions, and spend most of your time on scenarios and exercises, not unilateral lecture.

Challenge your audience to discover their own insights instead of passively receiving content.

Stretch yourself to be a guide, not just another lecturer.