Financial strategies are becoming ever-more sophisticated as they respond to an increasingly globalised world. Many UHNWs hold assets across the globe, and they need extra assistance when structuring their wealth to last generations as well as be tax efficient.
One way that many UHNW families structure their wealth is through a trust. First conceptualised by the Greeks and Romans and further developed in the 12th century, a trust structure allows considerable assets to be enjoyed and controlled by different parties. While most of the time the legal and beneficiary owner is the same person, a trust structure specifically enables this split so that there can be a legal ‘owner’, but a separate beneficiary who receives the financial – or otherwise – benefit from the asset(s). The trust is then administered by a trustee on the beneficiary’s behalf.
Many UHNWs choose to set up a structure in a jurisdiction where there are significant tax benefits, such as the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. These regions – termed offshore financial centres – offer specific financial services to non-residents, low or no tax rates and appealing company regulation. Though firmly landlocked, other areas colloquially defined as ‘onshore offshore’ such as Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Switzerland also benefit from lower taxes so many choose to set up their structures in these jurisdictions as well.
Explore the full 2025 Spear’s Tax & Trust Indices:
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- Tax Lawyers
- Contentious Trust Lawyers
- Probate and Wills Lawyers
- Tax and Trust Barristers
- Accountants and Tax Advisers
- Trusts, Structuring and Offshore
To reflect this growing need, Spear’s has drawn up a list of the very finest trusts, structuring and offshore services advisers from around the world. Our rankings feature solicitors who can deal with the legal implications of founding and administering structures abroad.
‘The interesting thing about my practice, being an offshore practice, is just how much we form part of a global environment advisory team for international families,’ remarks Bernadette Carey, partner at Cayman Islands-based firm Carey Olsen. They can also deal with more contentious elements in foreign jurisdictions. ‘[Clients] like the fact that we can do the advisory work on structuring, but then we can also think ahead as to what could go terribly wrong,’ says Robert Lindley, a BVI, Bermuda and Cayman-qualified attorney at offshore firm Conyers and a new addition this year.
The 2025 index also features the top offshore experts and fiduciary services providers in key jurisdictions, from Jersey to Liechtenstein. ‘What I’ve tended to find is that simply putting in a very complicated legal structure won’t actually make anyone’s lives easier,’ says Daniel Channing at Whitmill Trust, a new addition to this year’s index. Many of our advisers go far beyond just managing trusts and structures on behalf of clients, extending their services into providing advice on next generation wealth, succession planning and family office services.
Valued not only for their deep knowledge and decades of experience in dealing with vast sums of wealth, our advisers have a commitment to discretion and maintaining the highest levels of client service.
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- Methodology
- The best trusts, structuring and offshore lawyers: some names to know
- The best trusts, structuring and offshore lawyers: the complete list
- Contact us
Methodology
Each year, the Spear’s Research Unit reassesses and refreshes its rankings of the leading providers in each sector by gathering data from and about the advisers and firms themselves, assessing submission forms, collating nominations, carrying out peer reviews, reviewing data from third-party sources, gathering references and recommendations, canvassing experts and conducting hundreds of interviews.
Advisers are evaluated using a proprietary scoring system that assigns different weightings to certain attributes. These scores feed directly into each new set of rankings in the Spear’s Indices. Each of these indices are published first online (according to the research calendar) and then in print. Print publication takes the form of the annual Spear’s 500 directory, which includes the top advisers in every index.
[See also: A guide to The Spear’s 500: Everything you need to know]
Each featured adviser is profiled on spears500.com. The site allows users to search the Spear’s database of more than 4,000 entities to find one (or more) to meet their specific requirements by filtering for specific attributes such as an adviser’s location, their specialist expertise and information about their client base.
The best trusts, structuring and offshore lawyers: some names to know
John Bender
- Focus: Complex multi-jurisdictional wealth structuring
- Ranking: Top Recommended
- Firm: Bender Brothers & Co
John Bender joined family trust outfit Bender Brothers & Co in 2008 and has served as director of its private client office since 2012.
The Liechtenstein-based practitioner supports some of the world’s wealthiest families with complex tax and trust arrangements, including helping families to set up trusts as well as appoint trustees, all with the added consideration of other jurisdictions.
Read John Bender’s full profile on Spears500.com
Darren Kelland
- Focus: Family office solutions
- Ranking: Recommended
- Firm: Hawksford
‘I work closely with my clients and their other advisers to build trust and establish long-term relationships,’ says Darren Kelland, head of private client services at Hawksford. ‘This is essential in order to ensure I provide the right solutions for each client’s individual, and often complex, needs.’
Kelland’s work is largely centred around clients who are based in the UK, Ireland and the Middle East. With over two decades of experience under his belt, he is a trusted source of expertise in matters concerning succession planning, asset protection and family office solutions.
Read Darren Kelland’s full profile on Spears500.com
Andrew Penney
- Focus: Succession planning and asset protection
- Ranking: Top Recommended
- Firm: Sequent
Andrew Penney, Sequent’s global head of wealth planning, focuses on succession planning and asset protection for ‘internationally mobile’ families.
‘I talk to clients and find out what is important to them and what they want to achieve,’ Penney says. A pivotal moment in his career was when ‘the arrogance of youth was replaced by the realisation that you will never stop learning’, he says.
‘The challenge is then seeing how the universal principles fit together and applying past experience to help an Israeli family move to Brazil, or a Chinese family to invest in US real estate. It is the infinite kaleidoscope of different flows of people and capital that provides the challenge and the interest.’
Read Andrew Penney’s full profile on Spears500.com
Andrew Sams
- Focus: Holistic wealth structuring
- Ranking: Recommended
- Firm: Hundle
Hundle partner and head of wealth structuring Andrew Sams provides holistic solutions geared towards the multi-generational needs of HNW families, ‘delivering tailored, long-term, client-centric wealth planning strategies that incorporate the investment, tax and commercial implications of an ever-evolving financial and fiscal landscape’.
It’s a service that uses wealth preservation strategies, tax management and global asset-holding structures to maximise inter-generational wealth transfer and investment returns.
Read Andrew Sams’ full profile on Spears500.com
Sam Orchard
- Focus: HNW estate structuring
- Ranking: Recommended
- Firm: BOW Trustees
Sam Orchard is managing director at BOW Trustees, where he works with HNW families and individuals seeking to enhance their wealth, structure their estates, and establish property holding and development structures. As part of his commitment to ensuring effective and high-quality client service, he ‘enjoys creating simple solutions to apparently complex problems’.
After leaving university, Orchard worked for a number of larger independent trust companies and was the head of client relationships at a medium-sized firm prior to co-founding BOW.
Read Sam Orchard’s full profile on Spears500.com
The best trusts, structuring and offshore lawyers: the complete list
Click on the individual names to be directed to more detailed profiles of each adviser on The Spear’s 500 website. The table is ordered by ranking and then alphabetically by surname.
Contact us
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With additional reporting by Alice Coleman.
