U.S Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal is leaving the bench for Facebook

Paul Grewal, a magistrate judge who was serving currently in San Jose federal court, will now be supposedly leaving his post there to join social networking giants Facebook as deputy general counsel in charge of litigation. Grewal, who confirmed the move to Recode the site that broke the news had been on the bench since 2010. He has been on the court's technology and patent committees.

Facebook said Grewal will be seen starting sometime in late June and report to general counsel Colin Stretch.His hiring was reported earlier Thursday by San Francisco-area legal newspaper The Recorder.Grewal, who has seen serving the Northern District of California bench since 2010 will now be joining the social-networking company as its vice president and deputy general counsel of litigation in late June overseeing global litigation for the company. Grewal and a Facebook spokesperson confirmed the move over email Thursday afternoon.

"Joining Facebook presents a unique opportunity to work on complex, legal and policy questions that affect billions of people all over the world in a variety of ways," Grewal said in an emailed statement. "It has been a privilege to serve the Northern District of California over the past six years, and I look forward to returning to practice at an innovative company like Facebook," he said. Prior appointment to Facebook, Grewal was a patent litigation partner at Day Casebeer Batchelder& Madrid.

U.S. District Chief Judge Phyllis Hamilton said in a phone interview Thursday afternoon that Grewal's "IP chops" will be missed on the bench, especially on the patent-heavy docket he covers in the San Jose courthouse."We will miss him for sure, both in terms of the amount of work he typically performs and in terms of just him as a person," Hamilton said. "Not only is he a colleague, he's a friend of all of us."