Artificial intelligence company Anthropic PBC is building an unusually large and diverse legal team as it prepares for a potential stock market debut that could rank among the biggest initial public offerings (IPOs) in history, Bloomberg Law reported.
The company has recruited nearly 100 lawyers over the past 18 months as it positions itself for a possible valuation exceeding $2 trillion. While several leading law firms are involved in preparations for the anticipated IPO, many of Anthropic’s new legal hires are working on enterprise software sales and other commercial functions that support its rapid revenue growth.
The recruitment drive reflects a shift in how technology companies organise their legal operations. Rather than concentrating lawyers within a conventional legal department, Anthropic has placed many of them across functions including human resources, taxation, public policy, product research and engineering.
The approach highlights growing demand for lawyers who understand not only legislation and regulation but also commercial strategy, software licensing and product development. As artificial intelligence companies expand their services into new markets, legal expertise is becoming increasingly embedded in their day-to-day operations.
The change is also evident in the development of AI-focused legal businesses and technology providers such as Legora and Harvey. Commercial and product lawyers are increasingly working alongside business and technology teams, rather than operating exclusively within traditional legal departments.
Anthropic, whose Claude chatbot is also being developed for professional and business applications, has signalled an interest in expanding its presence in the legal sector.
Adam Braveman, a former Big Law litigator and McKinsey & Company partner who now leads legal intelligence provider Firm Prospects, said senior lawyers from leading law firms were increasingly taking non-traditional positions at AI companies.
He attributed part of the recruitment surge to legal engineering roles, which combine commercial strategy, market development and product design. Such positions can offer competitive remuneration and equity participation, providing an alternative to the conventional route towards partnership at a major law firm.
However, the roles also bring new challenges. Lawyers must help train users, improve the adoption of AI tools and ensure that products can be deployed effectively across different business environments.
For Anthropic and other advanced AI developers, software is the central product, and its commercial use depends on a complex framework of legal rights and contractual arrangements. That creates substantial demand for lawyers who can manage licensing requirements across jurisdictions and tailor agreements to different products and customers.
Mark Chandler, a veteran of Silicon Valley who spent two decades leading the legal function at Cisco Systems, said lawyers were increasingly involved in defining and differentiating technology products through contractual terms. Work traditionally associated with product management could now require substantial legal input, particularly where licensing conditions determine how a service is offered in different markets.
New Frontiers
Anthropic has declined to disclose the size and composition of its legal team. Its recruitment website, however, lists almost 20 legal vacancies and around 100 other openings in related areas, including trust and safety, security and public policy.
The expansion comes against the backdrop of warnings by chief executive and co-founder Dario Amodei that advances in agentic AI could eliminate a significant proportion of entry-level white-collar jobs, including legal positions, within five years. For now, Anthropic’s own recruitment activity suggests that the development and deployment of advanced AI systems continue to generate demand for specialist legal expertise.
The company is also preparing for a potential IPO at a time when the traditional role of the general counsel is evolving. The experience of Space Exploration Technologies Corp, better known as SpaceX, which raised $86 billion without a legal department leader in its executive suite, offers another example of how major technology businesses can organise their leadership structures differently.
Lawrence Cunningham, a corporate governance expert at the University of Delaware, said the general counsel’s traditional responsibilities were changing rapidly as AI became capable of performing an increasing range of legal tasks. Companies were having to respond to both developments simultaneously, with the pressures particularly pronounced in the AI sector.
The legal challenges extend beyond commercial contracts and regulatory compliance. Advanced AI systems can create unforeseen risks, including cybersecurity threats and questions about accountability for the actions of autonomous systems. These concerns may require legal teams to work more closely with researchers, engineers, safety specialists and other professionals.
Sergio Alberto Gramitto Ricci, a law professor at Hofstra University, has argued that the deployment of advanced AI raises broader questions about corporate governance and the relationship between technology and society. He believes legal departments may need to bring together lawyers and experts from other disciplines to address issues that conventional legal structures were not designed to handle.
A Flatter Legal Structure
Despite the scale of the risks facing the company, Anthropic appears to favour a relatively flat organisational structure, with fewer layers of management than those typically found in large corporate legal departments.
In an employment research report published on October 16, the company described a workplace in which human employees operate alongside an expanding number of AI agents. The report also indicated that non-technical employees, including lawyers, could process more contracts and devote additional time to assessing risks and opportunities when using agentic AI tools such as Claude.
Five people familiar with Anthropic’s legal team, who requested anonymity to discuss its evolving structure, said dozens of associate general counsel operated without the conventional hierarchy of senior managers often found in large legal departments.
The team has also undergone leadership changes. Janel Thamkul, one of two deputy general counsel, left earlier this year. The other, Aparna Sridhar, joined the company in 2024 and was subsequently promoted to lead its litigation and regulatory team.
Anthropic’s international expansion has added another dimension to its legal recruitment. A Bloomberg Law analysis of public announcements, professional registrations, LinkedIn profiles and other publicly available information identified the need for specialised legal expertise as the company entered additional jurisdictions.
Khurram Naik, a recruiter specialising in intellectual property and a legal industry podcaster, said AI companies were also seeking litigators to manage a growing volume of disputes. Lawyers at the mid-level of their careers, including those working at major firms and specialist practices, were attracting interest despite such appointments being less common in traditional in-house legal recruitment.
Building an effective team requires leadership that combines legal knowledge with commercial judgement. Chandler said the most important qualities for a senior legal executive included the ability to recruit capable people, delegate responsibilities and make sound decisions when the appropriate course of action was uncertain.
Drawing Talent From Big Tech
Google, part of Alphabet Inc and closely linked to Anthropic through its technology and investment relationships, has been an important source of legal talent for the AI company, according to Bloomberg Law data.
Sridhar spent more than 12 years at Google, while Michelle Lee, the technology company's first deputy general counsel and head of patent strategy, became an adviser to Anthropic this year.
Elena Leichty, who joined Anthropic in 2023 after nearly six years at Google, succeeded Jeffrey Bleich as general counsel in August. She reports to Brian Israel, Anthropic’s chief legal officer, who joined the company from NASA in 2022.
Bleich has since moved to Anthropic’s policy team as a special international envoy. His responsibilities include pursuing opportunities linked to data centre development, reflecting the increasingly broad range of issues that legal and policy specialists may handle within an AI business.
The senior legal team’s limited public-company experience is not necessarily unusual for a fast-growing technology company preparing for a possible listing. The demands of an IPO are substantial, but the wider remit of an in-house legal leader extends beyond securities regulation and listing requirements.
Chandler said business understanding was essential for a senior legal executive, alongside the ability to help build products that customers value. As AI companies expand, that combination of legal judgement, commercial awareness and technological understanding is becoming increasingly important to the way corporate legal teams are structured.
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