Public Defenders: Paid Research Study

What you'll do

This is a one-off written survey, not an ongoing annotation job. Mercor is recruiting 100 current or former public defenders for a study it runs under the name Project Mercator, and the aim is to map how public-defense work really breaks down: your main responsibilities, the tasks under each, the smaller pieces of work inside those tasks, and which tasks depend on the output of others.

In practice that means writing out a task tree from memory. If you handled the same task differently depending on the court or the client, you can describe those versions separately. A study coordinator and written instructions are there to help, and the ad is explicit that no outside research and no real work product is required.

A later wave asks selected participants to review a combined task tree built from everyone's answers and fill in detail. Its scope and pay are to be confirmed before it starts, so treat it as a possibility, not part of the offer.

Who qualifies

• Current or former public defenders with hands-on experience representing indigent clients in the United States
• Able to say which jurisdiction you practiced in and when
• Court-appointed or contract public defense may count: explain the arrangement in your application so Mercor can judge the fit

Not enough on its own: experience only as a prosecutor, a law student, a legal-content annotator, or a lawyer with no public-defense work. Prior Mercor projects are welcome but not needed.

What it pays

$100 per hour of reviewed survey time. Wave 1 is capped at 90 minutes, so the most you can earn from it is $150. If you need longer, the ad says to contact the coordinator before going past the cap rather than after.

Payments are weekly on Stripe or Wise, and Mercor states it cannot support H-1B or STEM OPT candidates.

Confidentiality

The ad asks for your own professional experience written by you, not AI-generated answers. Leave out client names, case numbers, identifying facts, and anything confidential or privileged. Describing the shape of the work (what a bail review involves, what feeds a suppression motion) is the point; describing any particular case is not.

Worth knowing

Good:

• A high hourly rate for a short, well-defined task that needs no preparation
• No documents from real cases, and no research outside your own memory
• Open to former public defenders, so people who have moved on to other practice still qualify

Less good:

• Small total: $150 is the ceiling for wave 1 unless the coordinator approves more time
• Applying does not enroll you; Mercor reviews applications before sending personal survey links
• The follow-up wave is invitation-only and its pay is not yet set
• Independent contractor; projects can be shortened or ended early

About this listing

Posted by Mercor as a remote hourly contract, read on 24 September 2026. The pay, the 90-minute cap, the eligibility rules and the confidentiality limits are the ad's own. The ad does not name the client behind Project Mercator. See Mercor.