APPLEBY has been ranked number one in The Lawyer's Offshore Survey for the second year running.

The survey, in the legal news magazine The Lawyer, ranks companies by numbers of partners and Appleby, who has increased by eight in the last year, was well ahead of its competitors.

The group now boasts 82 partners throughout its 12 offices and 11 of these are in the Isle of Man firm. It is expected to be the first offshore law group to reach one hundred partners.

Appleby also came second in terms of the numbers of female partners. 28 percent of women make up the partnership as opposed to 33 percent in Crill Canavan who took the top spot.

Nick Verardi, partner at Appleby in the Isle of Man, said: "This is an interesting survey because it highlights the growth of the offshore legal sector as a whole – and also shows that the future is bright for our industry.

"I was very pleased to see the Appleby Group at the top of the list. We have been working hard to cultivate a solid group of partners across all our jurisdictions and this shows that our efforts have been successful. 

"It is also interesting to see a growing number of women in the sector and it appears that this can only continue to grow as we build on a strong foundation.

"Having a global reach has proven to be extremely beneficial to our clients – we are still the only international offshore legal group that is able to offer legal advice in all three crown dependencies. In addition, directly as a result of our Appleby connections, five of our commercial team are British Virgin Islands-qualified and so we are now able to offer BVI legal advice from within Appleby Isle of Man to all our clients, including our city clients."

For more information on Appleby click here.