According to The Recorder, New York's Chadbourne & Parke is swooping into Northern California with the hire of a Yahoo in-house IP lawyer in Silicon Valley.

Duane Valz, associate general counsel of global patents, will be joining the firm next month as it makes its first foray into the Bay Area. Valz said it was still unclear where Chadbourne's new office would be located: San Francisco or Silicon Valley.

The move comes in a tough economic year when only one other major firm, Haynes and Boone, has opened up shop in Silicon Valley. Chadbourne, with its 400 lawyers and offices around the world, joins a clutch of New York firms like Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Davis Polk & Wardwell that have already been in the region for years.