Wilson Sonsini and Freshfields take the lead roles on Anthropic’s planned Nasdaq listing, with Cravath, Orrick and Cleary Gottlieb filling out a roster fit for one of the largest IPOs in history.
So who wins the biglaw work for the Anthropic float on October 26? Freshfields are one of the big winners with a ‘double win’.
The Wall Street Journal has put the potential valuation at around $2 trillion, though some investors have more recently pencilled in closer to $1.5 trillion.
| Law firm | Role | Key lawyers |
|---|---|---|
| Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati | Lead counsel to Anthropic | Chair Rezwan Pavri, corporate head Allison Spinner and team |
| Freshfields | Counsel to the underwriters | Sarah Solum, Calise Cheng, Phillip Stoup |
| Cravath, Swaine & Moore | Co-founders, on governance | Nicholas Dorsey, Aaron Gruber, Claudia Fitzpatrick |
| Orrick | Executive compensation and equity | Christine McCarthy |
| Cleary Gottlieb | Long-Term Benefit Trust, on governance | Francesca Odell, with Yale professor John Morley |
Freshfields’ double win
The most interesting name on the list is Freshfields. In April the Magic Circle firm signed a multi-year deal with Anthropic to co-develop legal AI tools and helped set up Anthropic’s Long-Term Benefit Trust in 2023.
Now it sits across the table, advising an underwriting syndicate led by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, with 20 more banks in tow. Not a bad result for a firm still building its US capital markets credentials.
Wilson Sonsini’s side bet
Wilson Sonsini has advised Anthropic since 2022, and it has more riding on this deal than its fees. The S-1 discloses that investment partnerships affiliated with the firm hold less than 0.01 percent of Anthropic’s stock.
At a $2 trillion valuation, that puts the stake at no more than about $200 million. Bloomberg Law reached that figure after correcting an earlier estimate of $1.5 billion to $2 billion. Some decimal points matter more than others.
The firm famously held equity in Google when it listed in 2004. Some Silicon Valley firms do rather more than send invoices: they take a slice of the companies they help build.
AI is creating legal work, not killing it
There is a certain irony in all this given that Anthropic is selling technology that promises to automate large chunks of legal work has hired one of the year’s more expensive legal line-ups to manage its own affairs.
And the work runs well beyond the IPO. The prospectus warns of product liability, consumer protection, negligence and failure-to-warn claims linked to AI outputs, autonomous agents and customer use. It also discloses a civil investigative demand from the FTC. Axios reports the demand was sent on October 14 and seeks records on safety incidents, safeguards, marketing and privacy policies.
In-house, Anthropic’s legal team has grown from five people in 2023 to close to 100, according to Legal Business.
The lure of big deals continues to attract big law, despite the equally looming threat of legal AI taking work away.
