August 26, 2009 11:18 AM

Chadbourne Plans Northern California Office, Hires Yahoo IP Lawyer

Posted by Matt Straquadine

Chadbourne & Parke plans to open a new Northern California office, reports The Recorder, a sibling publication. While the the firm is deciding between a Silicon Valley or San Francisco location, it's already made a big hire to head the new office: Yahoo in-house IP lawyer Duane Valz.

Valz, associate general counsel of global patents at the search engine company, officially joins Chadbourne next month. The hire underscores the firm's recent strategy of hiring in-house IP specialists. Just last January, Chadbourne hired Goldman Sachs's chief IP counsel. Such hires, though, don't bring with them the business that big law firm lateral hires do.

At Yahoo, Valz's departure is the latest in-house loss. Late last year, the company's former head of IP,  Joseph Siino, left to start a consulting business. The move was followed shortly after by the departure of Lisa McFall, Yahoo's former head of patent litigation.

"Yahoo has been refocusing it’s priorities--change is natural," a Yahoo rep told the Recorder's Zusha Elinson. "We continue to build our team for the future."

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