Judge gives final nod to $1.5B Anthropic settlement; Lawyers’ fees cut again

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge has signed off on a $1.5 billion deal to end a class action lawsuit brought against A.I. research company, Anthropic, on behalf of thousands of authors who claim Anthropic allegedly pirated and used their published works to train its A.I. products to respond more like humans in text.

Under the deal, the plaintiffs' lawyers are expected to receive about 7% of the settlement funds, or about $101.5 million.

That amount marked a substantial cut from the 25% fee award the plaintiffs' lawyers had initially sought from the deal. But it also marked even a 44% cut from a revised 12.5% award request the lawyers had filed earlier this spring, in response to concerns expressed by both judges overseeing the settlement.

In her final approval ruling, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin said the 12.5% award request was still excessive, as she said it was based on a so-called "multiplier" that she believed was "far outside the range of multipliers found to be reasonable in mega fund cases" in California federal court and elsewhere in the states included in the U.S. Ninth Judicial Circuit.

While attorneys will receive more than $101 million from the deal, published authors who file eligible claims under the settlement could receive about $3,000 for each of their published works allegedly improperly used by Anthropic to train its "large language model" artificial intelligence programs (LLMs.)

In her order, the judge said those payments would provide "substantial benefits" to the published authors and others included as plaintiffs in the class action, particularly "in light of the novel claims asserted."

The legal action against Anthropic was launched in San Francisco federal court in 2024, when attorneys from the lead firms of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP and Susman Godfrey LLP filed suit on behalf of thousands of authors and copyright holders.

The lawsuits have claimed Anthropic improperly used original, copyrighted works created by thousands of authors to train its LLMs.

The action was led by named plaintiffs Andrea Bartz, Charles Graever, Kirk Wallace Johnson, all of whom are identified as authors and journalists.

The lawsuit specifically accused Anthropic of violating federal copyright protections by allegedly downloading at least 500,000 books and other copyrighted works from online datasets of pirated works and then fed those works into programs designed to help the company develop and refine its Claude family of AI models.

According to court documents, Anthropic sought to specifically help the Claude AIs better respond to queries with "lifelike, complex, and useful text responses."

According to the complaint, Anthropic allegedly used its alleged online piracy to build a company that was worth an estimated $18 billion in late 2023.

After nearly a year and a half in court, Anthropic agreed in the summer of 2025 to pay $1.5 billion to end the lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup granted preliminary approval to the settlement last year.

However, before his retirement at the end of 2025, Alsup expressed concern over the plantiffs' lawyers bid to claim 25% of the settlement, or about $375 million, as attorney fees.

Upon Alsup's retirement, the case was passed to Judge Martinez-Olguin, who said she shared those concerns.

Foremost among those concerns, the judges said, was the decision by the Lieff Cabraser and Susman Godfrey firms to attempt to insert the three other law firms into the line for fees without first clearing the arrangement with the court. Those three additional firms were identified as Cowan DeBaets Abrahams & Shepherd; Edelson P.C.; and Oppenheim + Zebrak.

On Dec. 23, 2025, Alsup said he had appointed only the two lead firms to act as class counsel in the case, and had "never blessed" any of the fee-sharing arrangements with the three additional law firms.

The judge said he only learned of the arrangement from the attorneys' original petition for nearly $375 million in fees in the case.

The lead attorneys responded to the judges' concerns with a new fee request in March, slicing the fees sought in half, to about $187.5 million.

The lead attorneys acknowledged the judges' concerns in that March filing and indicated their revised fee request cut out a special $75 million prize for the other three firms, among other reductions.

In the filing, the attorneys asserted there were no deals, outside of agreements to divide fees for work related to the Anthropic case.

Judge Martinez Olguin welcomed the changes, but said the fee award would still be too large, as it included a "multiplier" of 6.92 applied to the base fee request. She said the multiplier should actually be 3.75.

The judge noted that would be in line with other large settlements in California federal court, and particularly with the attorney fees awarded under the $1.98 billion settlement awarded in 2025 in San Francisco federal court to end the massive college sports litigation related to so-called claims for violations of athletes' NIL, or Name, Image and Likeness, rights.

In granting final approval, the judge also overruled a slew of objections from authors and others who might otherwise be included in the settlement that the deal was too small and paid lawyers too much.

Following the grant of final approval, the Susman Godfrey and Lieff Cabraser firms released statements saying they were "pleased" with the final approval.

Attorney Rachel Geman, of Lieff Cabraser, who served as one of the co-lead counsel in the action, called the settlement "just the start" of efforts to protect the rights of authors and other copyright holders, should their works be allegedly misused by A.I. makers.

“The settlement is historic," Geman said in the statement. "It reminds us, as if we needed reminding, of the paramount importance of books in reflecting and shaping the best of our language and thoughts, and the importance of those who write and publish them."

Attorney Justin Nelson, of Susman Godfrey, said: “We are gratified by the Court’s ruling granting final approval of this historic settlement. It is the largest known copyright recovery in history. We look forward to making distributions to the Class as promptly as possible.”