In its first foray into Northern California, Steptoe & Johnson LLP next week will open a new office in Silicon Valley, poaching two IP partners from King & Spalding to lead the Palo Alto outpost.

It will be the 410-lawyer firm’s tenth office, to be headed by well-known patent litigator William Abrams, who joins along with partner Sanjeet Dutta. Steptoe also added a third King & Spalding IP partner, Boyd Cloern, in Washington.