Two-horse senior partner race at Herbies as Parkes pulls out

Tim Parkes has dropped out of the contest to become Herbert Smith senior partner after the first round of voting.

The initial voting, which finished at the end of last week, saw rival candidates Jonathan Scott and Allen Hanen emerge with the greatest level of support.

As a result Scott and Hanen will go head-to-head in a run-off election, with a result expected by early next week.

All partners have the right to vote and the winning candidate must take at least 50 per cent of the votes cast in order to secure a victory.

Parkes is a former executive partner and Asia head who works in the litigation department. He was unavailable for comment when contacted by The Lawyer. Scott is a competition partner who used to run the competition practice, while Hanen hails from coporate and runs the CIS practice out of Moscow.

Hanen, Parkes and Scott announced their candidacies after current senior partner David Gold said that he would not stand for re-election when his term comes to an end in April 2010 (TheLawyer.com, 15 June 2009).