Wilson Sonsini Poised to Get $200 Million Anthropic Stake (1) - Bloomberg Law

Anthropic PBC turned to a handful of Big Law firms ahead of its Monday filing of a prospectus detailing the terms of its upcoming initial public offering, including one firm in line to get a particularly lucrative slice of the artificial intelligence company. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati is serving as lead counsel to Anthropic on the listing, which disclosed that an investment partnership affiliated with the Silicon Valley legal stalwart owns less than 0.01% of its outstanding stock. If Anthropic, as previously reported , is valued at roughly $2 trillion upon its stock market debut, that would put the firm’s stake at around $200 million. Anthropic declined to discuss the matter. Wilson Sonsini didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. It is not unusual for some law firms, particularly those with West Coast roots , to take equity stakes in clients. Wilson Sonsini famously had an equity stake in internet search giant Google, now part of the technology conglomerate known as Alphabet Inc. , when it went public in 2004. Rezwan Pavri, who became chairman of Wilson Sonsini this year, is leading a team of lawyers working on the matter that includes corporate partners Allison Spinner, Lang Liu, Colin Conklin, Lester Ang, and Shannon Delahaye. Anthropic’s decision to retain the firm for its IPO, which could be the largest in history, had already been public. Wilson Sonsini has advised Anthropic since 2022 , including working on investments in the company from Amazon.com Inc . Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe partner Christine McCarthy is handling executive compensation and equity matters for Anthropic. Orrick advised Anthropic on a fundraising this year that pushed its valuation to nearly $1 trillion and handled its acquisition of AI safety and research outfit Stainless Software Inc. Cravath, Swaine & Moore is representing Anthropic’s co-founders “in connection with certain governance matters,” the document said. Nicholas Dorsey, head of venture capital and growth equity, and Aaron Gruber, co-head of global mergers and acquisitions, are leading a Cravath team that includes corporate partner Claudia Fitzpatrick (née Ricciardi), tax partner Christopher Fargo, corporate governance partner William Podurgiel, executive compensation and benefits partner Jonathan Katz, and of counsel Virginia Anderson. Francesca Odell, co-leader of the public company group and head of the Americas corporate practice at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, and Yale Law School professor John Morley are acting as counsel to Anthropic’s long-term benefit trust. Sarah Solum, global co-head of capital markets at Freshfields LLP, is acting as counsel to underwriters for Anthropic’s IPO along with partners Calise Cheng and Phillip Stoup. The San Francisco-based company’s S-1 does not yet list an estimated amount for the issuer’s legal fees and expenses. Elena Leichty, who was promoted in August to general counsel of Anthropic, is named in its S-1 along with chief legal officer Brian Israel. Neither were among the company’s three highest-paid executives in 2025. Anthropic, founded in 2021 by former employees of AI rival OpenAI, has assembled a powerful outside counsel roster. Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, a frequent opponent of the Trump administration, is representing Anthropic in a case that seeks to scuttle a ban on its technology being used by US government agencies. WilmerHale and other firms such as White & Case; Morrison & Foerster; Cooley LLP; Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer; Weil, Gotshal & Manges; and Latham & Watkins are collectively counseling Anthropic in more than 70% of cases involving the company in federal courts, according to Bloomberg Law data. Several of those firms worked on Anthropic’s record-setting $1.5 billion copyright class action settlement with authors and publishers. ( Adds Anthropic's response in the third paragraph. An earlier version gave an incorrect figure for the valuation of Wilson Sonsini's stake in Anthropic. ) Learn more about Bloomberg Law or Log In to keep reading: See Breaking News in Context Bloomberg Law provides trusted coverage of current events enhanced with legal analysis. Learn more Already a subscriber? Log in to keep reading or access research tools and resources. Log In