About Make Me Visible
Make Me Visible is an advocacy and accountability platform built for people who have been harmed, dismissed, or abandoned by the institutions that were supposed to protect them.
We focus on the lived consequences of disability, chronic illness, financial exploitation, elder abuse, institutional failure, and the impossible burden placed on vulnerable people to investigate and resolve their own emergencies.
We are building a new model of advocacy that brings together legal case development, evidence organization, attorney outreach, investigative research, media engagement, and public accountability.
The Opportunity
Make Me Visible is seeking a driven paralegal student, pre-law candidate, legal researcher, investigative advocate, journalism student, or emerging professional for a fast-paced, hands-on, 3.5-month educational fellowship.
The fellow will receive supervised experience helping develop two substantial, document-heavy matters involving financial harm, disability, institutional inaction, and failures of protection.
One matter involves the stark disparity between a multimillion-dollar family estate and a permanently disabled adult currently relying on disability income and food assistance. The matter raises questions involving trust and estate administration, access to family assets, possible undue influence, medical vulnerability, fiduciary responsibility, and whether existing systems adequately protect a disabled beneficiary.
The second matter involves a Nevada financial-fraud case in which more than a quarter of a million dollars was lost. The matter resulted in criminal prosecution, yet the disabled victim has received no meaningful financial recovery despite extensive contact with attorneys, financial institutions, law-enforcement agencies, and government authorities.
This is not a traditional clerical paralegal position.
The fellow will learn how to turn years of documents, communications, court filings, financial information, and institutional responses into organized case materials that attorneys, investigators, regulators, journalists, advocates, and other decision-makers can understand and evaluate.
The work involves real matters and real professional standards. Fellows will receive structured instruction, supervised assignments, substantive feedback, and opportunities to revise and strengthen their work.
The fellow’s work will complement Make Me Visible’s advocacy efforts without replacing an employee or assuming independent responsibility for an active legal matter. The primary purpose of the fellowship is to develop transferable skills in legal case development, evidence analysis, investigative research, advocacy, professional outreach, and public accountability.
What You Will Work On
Case Development
- Build clear, source-supported chronologies for separate California and Nevada matters
- Organize facts, parties, institutions, assets, transactions, and key events
- Identify missing documents, unanswered questions, factual conflicts, and areas requiring further investigation
- Create concise case summaries, attorney-intake packets, evidence indexes, and issue outlines
- Distinguish verified facts, allegations, legal questions, and matters requiring attorney review
- Organize documentation showing the financial, medical, housing, personal, and functional consequences of the alleged conduct
- Maintain separate and confidential files for each matter
- Revise case materials in response to substantive feedback
Attorney Research and Outreach
- Research attorneys and firms based on jurisdiction, practice area, litigation experience, licensing, and potential fit
- Look beyond basic search results to identify smaller firms, emerging litigators, dual-licensed attorneys, appellate lawyers, former prosecutors, and other qualified candidates
- Explain why each attorney or firm may be relevant before outreach is approved
- Draft personalized attorney outreach connecting each matter to the recipient’s demonstrated experience
- Participate in supervised outreach after receiving authorization
- Maintain an accurate record of responses, referrals, conflicts, declines, and follow-up dates
- Prepare concise briefing materials before attorney conversations
- Track procedural developments and questions requiring review by licensed counsel
- Research possible contingency, hybrid-fee, limited-scope, co-counsel, clinic, fellowship, and public-interest options
- Analyze unsuccessful outreach and recommend a stronger next approach
Evidence and Records Management
- Review and label documents using a consistent file-management system
- Connect major factual statements to the records supporting them
- Organize court filings, correspondence, financial documents, agency communications, medical-impact records, and other evidence
- Maintain a notice chronology showing which people and institutions were informed, what they received, how they responded, and what happened afterward
- Prepare exhibit lists and document summaries
- Identify contradictions across filings, correspondence, declarations, and institutional responses
- Protect confidential medical, financial, personal, and legally sensitive information
- Separate what a document expressly establishes from what it may suggest or leave unanswered
Media and Investigative Outreach
- Research investigative journalists, editors, documentary producers, podcast hosts, legal reporters, disability reporters, and financial-crime reporters
- Identify professionals whose work genuinely aligns with the matters instead of producing generic media lists
- Help develop targeted media packets and concise story summaries
- Draft individualized outreach for review and authorization
- Track responses, referrals, follow-ups, and expressions of interest
- Help explain the larger public-interest issues without presenting allegations as established legal conclusions
- Support public-accountability efforts involving disability, institutional abandonment, financial exploitation, elder protection, and access to justice
- Evaluate which facts are appropriately documented for external communication and which information must remain confidential
Government and Agency Follow-Up
- Organize previous communications with law enforcement, regulators, elected officials, adult-protection agencies, and other authorities
- Prepare supervised follow-up correspondence based on the existing record
- Track incident numbers, complaints, referrals, assigned personnel, promised actions, and unresolved requests
- Help draft public-record requests and organize agency responses
- Document when institutions received notice and whether meaningful action followed
- Identify which questions remain unanswered and which agency may have responsibility for addressing them
The Larger Question Behind the Work
This project examines what happens when a disabled person is deprived of the money, safety, and support needed to pursue accountability—and is then expected to finance, investigate, coordinate, and resolve the harm alone.
The fellowship will examine questions including:
- How can substantial family assets remain under the control of others while a disabled adult connected to those assets survives on food assistance?
- What protections exist when financial harm creates medical, housing, and bodily risk?
- Who becomes responsible when every institution addresses only one narrow piece of the problem?
- How can evidence be structured so decision-makers can no longer dismiss a matter as too complicated?
- What happens when the person with the fewest resources is required to perform the most work?
- How should advocates communicate serious allegations while remaining accurate, responsible, and grounded in evidence?
- What does meaningful follow-through look like when the first route to accountability fails?
Educational Structure and Supervision
Each fellow will receive:
- An Individual Fellowship Plan identifying the skills they want to develop
- Orientation covering confidentiality, evidence handling, professional boundaries, and the distinction between evidence and inference
- Weekly instructional and case-development meetings
- Regular access to a designated supervisor
- Defined assignments with learning objectives
- Written or verbal feedback on substantive work
- Opportunities to revise assignments after receiving feedback
- A midpoint evaluation and final skills assessment
- Coordination with an academic institution when credit is requested
- A final summary of the skills, assignments, and professional competencies completed during the fellowship
The fellowship will accommodate academic obligations and will remain limited to the 3.5-month period during which structured learning is provided.
Fellowship Milestones
Weeks 1–2: Foundations and Individual Plan
- Complete confidentiality and evidence-handling orientation
- Review the boundaries of legal-support work
- Learn the case-file and source-citation systems
- Complete an initial skills assessment
- Establish an Individual Fellowship Plan
- Receive an assigned research and advocacy lane
Weeks 3–5: Evidence and Case Development
- Build or strengthen a source-supported chronology
- Prepare an evidence index
- Identify missing records and unresolved factual questions
- Draft a concise factual case summary
- Revise the work after receiving feedback
Weeks 6–9: Professional Research and Outreach
- Research qualified attorneys, journalists, agencies, advocates, or institutional contacts
- Explain why each proposed contact is relevant
- Develop supervised outreach materials
- Participate in approved outreach
- Track responses and next actions
- Evaluate what worked, what failed, and what should change
Weeks 10–12: Accountability and Follow-Through
- Prepare supervised follow-up correspondence
- Draft a public-record request or agency inquiry
- Organize agency responses and unresolved requests
- Update the notice-and-response chronology
- Prepare briefing materials for a professional conversation
Weeks 13–15: Capstone and Career Development
- Complete an attorney-ready or decision-maker-ready case-development packet
- Present findings, evidentiary gaps, and unresolved questions
- Produce a redacted professional writing sample
- Complete a final skills assessment
- Receive a written summary of demonstrated competencies
- Develop a résumé-ready description of the fellowship experience
Measurable Learning Deliverables
By the conclusion of the 3.5-month fellowship, each participant should be able to demonstrate meaningful progress through completed work such as:
- A source-supported chronology
- An organized evidence index
- A concise case summary or attorney-intake packet
- Two supervised research memoranda
- An attorney, media, agency, or advocacy qualification matrix
- Approved outreach and follow-up materials
- A public-record or institutional follow-up package
- A maintained activity and learning tracker
- A redacted portfolio-quality writing sample
- A final capstone presentation
- Documented improvement between the initial and final skills assessments
Every material factual statement must be connected to a source. Work will be evaluated for accuracy, judgment, organization, confidentiality, initiative, responsiveness to feedback, and completion of agreed learning milestones.
External decisions—including attorney acceptance, media placement, funding, government action, and case outcomes—cannot be guaranteed and will not be the sole measure of performance.
Who We Are Looking For
You may be a strong fit if you are:
- A paralegal student, pre-law student, law student, law graduate, legal assistant, investigative researcher, journalism student, or early-career advocate
- Interested in civil litigation, financial fraud, fiduciary misconduct, elder abuse, disability rights, consumer protection, white-collar matters, or investigative journalism
- Comfortable reviewing a substantial volume of documents
- Able to separate facts from assumptions and write with precision
- Persistent without becoming careless or inflammatory
- Skilled at professional outreach and respectful follow-through
- Able to understand both the legal issues and the human consequences
- Organized, dependable, and capable of completing defined assignments independently
- Willing to ask questions when information is incomplete
- Receptive to detailed feedback and willing to revise work
- Serious about confidentiality and responsible handling of sensitive records
- Prepared to keep moving when the first research or outreach approach does not succeed
Experience with California or Nevada law, trust and estate litigation, banking disputes, fraud, public-record requests, legal databases, media research, or disability advocacy is helpful but not required.
What You Will Gain
This fellowship provides direct, supervised experience in:
- Developing complex, real-world legal matters
- Building attorney-ready case materials
- Conducting legal and factual research
- Reviewing evidence and constructing chronologies
- Researching attorneys and law firms
- Developing investigative media strategy
- Preparing government and regulatory correspondence
- Practicing public-interest advocacy
- Translating complicated records into clear and actionable materials
- Understanding how financial harm affects housing, healthcare, disability, and personal safety
- Communicating with professionals across legal, media, government, and advocacy settings
- Receiving feedback and improving work through revision
- Developing professional materials that may support future academic and career opportunities
Fellows will not be given meaningless administrative work simply to fill time. Assignments will be connected to defined learning objectives and active efforts to secure legal review, institutional accountability, public visibility, and a path toward resolution.
By the end of the fellowship, participants should leave with tangible work, stronger professional judgment, clearer evidence of their abilities, and a deeper understanding of what responsible advocacy requires when a vulnerable person has been left to navigate institutional failure alone.
Important Fellowship Boundaries
This is a supervised legal-support, research, case-development, media-outreach, and advocacy internship.
The fellow will not:
- Act as an attorney or provide legal advice
- Represent anyone in court or before an agency
- Hold themselves out as licensed counsel
- Make legal decisions reserved for licensed attorneys
- Promise representation, recovery, publication, funding, or government action
- Send external communications without authorization
- Disclose confidential information outside the approved scope
- Independently manage an active legal matter
- Replace the work of a paid employee
All external communications must be reviewed and authorized before being sent. Fellows will work within their agreed schedules and will not be expected to remain available outside those hours.
The fellowship does not create an entitlement to future employment. Either party may end the fellowship in accordance with the written fellowship agreement. Confidentiality, return of materials, and transfer of completed work will remain required at departure.
About the Founder
Make Me Visible was founded by Sweta Patel, an entrepreneur, investigative researcher, and patient advocate who has spent years navigating complex legal, medical, financial, and institutional systems.
The platform is being built from lived experience, not from a distance, to create the structure, visibility, continuity, and protection that vulnerable people are too often denied.