Biography
Jeff Bleich is the General Counsel of Anthropic where he leads Anthropic’s legal team. Over his 30+ year legal career, he has specialized in high stakes litigation concerning disruptive technologies, cybersecurity and international disputes. He served as Special Counsel to President Obama in the White House, special master and court-appointed mediator in the U.S. District Court, Chief Legal Officer at Cruise, an equity partner at both Munger, Tolles & Olson and Dentons, and a law clerk to Chief Justice Rehnquist at the U.S. Supreme Court. Jeff has been honored as California Lawyer Attorney of the Year, a Burton “Legend in the Law” at the Library of Congress, and listed among the Daily Journal’s 100 most influential attorneys in California, LawDragon’s top 500, America’s Best Lawyers as a top “Bet the Company” lawyer, and as the L.A. Times In-House Counsel of the Year for large private companies.
Outside his professional practice, Jeff most recently served as a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University and the Chair of the Jeff Bleich Centre on Democracy and Disruptive Technologies at Flinders University. He previously served as the U.S. Ambassador to Australia, for which he received numerous awards, including the Sue Cobb Medal, the State Department’s highest award for a non-career ambassador. Jeff has served on several boards, including as Chair of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, Chair of PG&E Company during its 2019-2020 bankruptcy reorganization, Chair of the California State University Board of Trustees, Chair of Nuix, President of the California State Bar, President of the Bar Association of San Francisco, Chair of the ABA’s Amicus Curiae Committee, and a member of the Board of Trustees of Amherst College and the National Security Education Board. He has been elected as a life member to both the American Law Institute and the Council on Foreign Relations.
Jeff has taught several courses at UC Berkeley School of Law, and publishes extensively. He holds a B.A. magna cum laude from Amherst College, an M.P.P from Harvard with highest honors, a J.D. from the Univ. of California, Berkeley with highest honors, and holds honorary Doctorates from S.F. State University, Flinders University, and Griffith University.
Jeff was Editor-in-Chief of the California Law Review, and in addition to clerking at the U.S. Supreme Court, clerked for Judge Abner Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and Judge Howard Holtzmann of the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal at The Hague.
