OUR WORK
Vox Vera Performance Labs™
Half-day courtroom, negotiation, and communication training for lawyers and leaders.
In high-stakes moments, most professionals already know what they should say. The breakdown happens in live interaction — when pressure rises, attention fragments, listening narrows, and the body stops supporting the exchange. Arguments lose shape, offers lose weight, rooms go quiet for the wrong reasons, and conversations turn before anyone names the shift.
This is the layer most communication training never reaches. Conventional frameworks and tips live in the speaker's head, while what determines real-world outcomes lives in the body, in the voice, and in the distance that connects people. Vox Vera's Performance Labs train that layer directly: breath, voice, presence, listening, language, and responsiveness — the elements that determine how an argument, a pitch, a board remark, or a difficult conversation actually lands.
Each Lab runs as a half-day session of 3.5 to 4 hours for six to twelve participants, with additional coaching staff for larger cohorts. The work is structured as practice rather than presentation: participants inhabit the space, speak, move, receive immediate feedback, and repeat under varied conditions in a supportive, dynamic environment, tailored to the specific demands of your firm or organization.
Foundational Labs
The physical craft that every other skill depends on.
Presence Lab
Presence is a trained physical capacity. It depends on specific, teachable elements: bodily alignment, release of unhelpful tensions, breath that supports speech, and full attention that meets the moment and avoids self-monitoring. Presence Lab trains each of these directly, drawing on acting, movement, Alexander Technique principles, and the Patsy Rodenburg lineage. Participants leave able to enter a room and compellingly hold space in oral advocacy, negotiations, client meetings, lectures, and high-stakes public appearances.
Voice & Speech Lab
Under pressure, the voice changes in predictable ways. Breath shortens, pitch rises, resonance narrows, and articulation tightens, flattening meaning and cutting off connection. Voice & Speech Lab addresses each of these directly, and opens up your relationship with sound and the English language. Drawing on classical voice training, the Patsy Rodenburg method, linguistic science, and the humanities, the work develops breath support, opens resonance, expands vocal range and stamina, and improves the articulation and flow of sound that brings you closer to your audience. What emerges is a voice that can sustain a three-week trial, a four-hour board meeting, or a televised interview without loss of clarity or authority.
Improvisation Lab
When a judge interrupts, a meeting goes off-script, or a counterparty shifts position mid-argument, prepared talking points stop working. Improvisation Lab trains the real-time, "thinking on your feet" capacity that carries effective leaders and advocates through these moments. Drawing on extensive training at the nation's top improvisation programs, participants practice listening to understand, speaking confidently in the moment, and resetting productively when a situation goes sideways. Though the Improvisation Lab is high-energy and interactive, the work isn't about learning to be funny or quick. It's about sustaining clear thinking and responsiveness when a hearing, meeting, Q&A, or negotiation turns in an unexpected direction.
Applied Labs
Foundation craft deployed in the specific venues where lawyers and leaders work.
Litigation Performance Lab
The courtroom is a physical environment with specific demands: long stretches of sitting followed by long stretches of standing, the stress of objections, challenging acoustics and spatial layouts, and sustained attention under judge, jury, and opposing-counsel scrutiny. The Litigation Performance Lab trains for these conditions directly. Participants practice oral arguments, witness preparation and examinations, objections, and the craft-based physical and vocal techniques that traditional trial advocacy programs and senior lawyers don't teach. Drawing on Vox Vera's unparalleled integration of BigLaw litigation experience and elite performance training, participants leave with concrete tools that apply to their next appearance, not abstract principles or anecdotes that lack a physical foundation.
Negotiation Performance Lab
Negotiations rarely break down on substance; they break down in delivery — how and when something is said and what shifts as pressure rises. The body registers it first: heart rates climb, breath holds, pace accelerates, language tightens, listening narrows, and silence gets filled instead of used. Even seasoned negotiators feel the turn — a counter read as a slight, a tone that lands as dismissal — and the interaction spirals before anyone names it. The Negotiation Performance Lab trains this layer directly. Participants work on the delivery, mindset, and listening skills that governs negotiation in real time: how an opening sets tempo, how an offer is placed so it lands, how breath and pause create space rather than urgency, and how to hold the room when dynamics shift. Drawing on extensive Fortune 50 dealmaking experience across complex commercial and talent agreements, the Lab focuses on the moments that determine outcomes — the first framing, the counter, the silence after an ask, the reset — building steadier pacing, cleaner language, and the capacity to stay present, read the room, and move a negotiation forward without forcing or folding.
Executive Performance Lab
Senior leadership functions in a specific set of physical contexts: earnings calls and investor presentations, town halls and all-hands meetings, board rooms and executive committees, media interviews and crisis communications. Each context carries distinct demands on voice, presence, and language — and each rewards or punishes leaders in ways most executive coaching can't address. The Executive Performance Lab trains for these conditions directly. Participants practice the presence and delivery techniques that sustain authority and leadership across long meetings, difficult conversations, and public-facing moments, drawing on Vox Vera's senior executive experience at NBCUniversal, Warner Bros., Miramax, and Amazon Studios — where the stakes of communication were measured in headlines, deals, careers, and shareholder trust. Participants leave with tools that hold across the full range of leadership contexts, from prepared speeches to the most consequential unscripted moments.
Classroom Engagement Lab
Teaching at any level is a performance discipline. Whether in a lecture hall, a seminar room, a conference keynote, or a continuing legal education webinar, instructors face the same physical demands as any other performer: sustaining energy across long sessions, reading a room, handling interruptions, and keeping students and participants engaged when attention fragments. The Classroom Engagement Lab trains for these conditions directly. Participants learn and practice vocal stamina, spatial presence, real-time adaptation, and the specific craft of holding a group's attention without strain or theatrics. The work draws on Vox Vera's teaching experience at Stanford Law School, UC Berkeley School of Law, and the University of Chicago Law School, where courses consistently reach capacity with long waitlists. Participants leave with the physical foundations that make teaching sustainable over a career, not tricks that wear thin after one semester.
Engagement Structure
Each Lab is a half-day experiential session of 3.5 to 4 hours for six to twelve participants. Cohorts larger than twelve are accommodated with additional coaching staff; cohorts beyond the Lab format or with time constraints are better served by our Standard Workshops, or through bespoke arrangements designed for implementation at scale.
Labs are delivered by Paul Marchegiani, Vox Vera collaborators, and Vox Vera Associate Coaches. Vox Vera collaborators are practicing attorneys and senior professionals with specific expertise and top credentials, and each Associate Coach is Patsy Rodenburg-certified, trained at the conservatory level in voice, movement, and performance, experienced working with senior professionals, and selected for their ability to hold a room with clarity and ease.
Multi-Lab engagements and customized packages available.