PHILIPSBURG:--- Online legal news platform Dutch Caribbean Legal Portal (DCLP) recently launched its top 10 rankings 2016 for Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao and St. Maarten. Most remarkable this year is that the largest firms on Aruba, Bonaire and St. Maarten all added more attorneys to their teams and prolong their first place in the top 10. In Curaçao, on the other hand, the number of lawyers of most of the larger firms decreased or remained steady. This caused the top 3 to change compared to the previous edition.
In Aruba, most law firms show stability in size compared to the previous edition. An exception is HBN Law, which added two new lawyers to its team in the past year. Consequently, they prolong their first place in the top 10 with a team of eight lawyers. The second place is shared by Brown Lawyers, David Kock Legal, Gomez & Bikker Advocaten and James Martin & Associates, all with five lawyers. New in the top 10 is De Cuba Wever Attorneys at Law.
The largest law firm of the Dutch Caribbean region, VanEps Kunneman VanDoorne, also remains the largest on Bonaire. The firm welcomed two new attorneys to their team in the past year, and now has a team of five lawyers. With two attorneys, the teams of HBN Law and Van Dijk/Soliana Bonaparte & Aardenburg share the second place. The rest of the top 10 in Bonaire consists of one-lawyer-firms.
Furthermore, half of the ten firms operate independently, with only an office in Bonaire.
In St. Maarten as well, BSZE Attorneys & Tax Lawyers remains the largest firm on (the Dutch side of) the island with eleven lawyers. Like HBN Law in Aruba and VanEps Kunneman VanDoorne in Bonaire, their team expanded with two lawyers. The top 3 is completed by Lexwell and HBN Law, who share the second place with six lawyers, and VanEps Kunneman VanDoorne with a team of five attorneys.
In Curaçao, on the other hand, the number of lawyers of most large firms decreased or remained steady. The number of lawyers of VanEps Kunneman VanDoorne decreased, but with 22 lawyers the firm remains the largest on Curaçao. They are followed by HBN Law, with 16 lawyers. Spigt Dutch Caribbean lost their ranking as number 3 to Soliana, Bonapart & Aardenburg and now share the fourth place with SMS Attorneys at Law. Although some of the larger firms in Curaçao saw a decrease in their legal staff, the total number of lawyers that are based in Curaçao grew from approximately 185 to 200 lawyers. Accountable for this increase are the smaller firms, of which the majority added at least one new lawyer to their teams. New in the top 10 of Curaçao is Ox &Wolf, founded in September 2015.
DCLP annually composes law firm rankings for each of the Dutch Caribbean jurisdictions and Suriname, based on the number of lawyers of the firms (excluding tax advisors, notaries and paralegals).The 2016 top 10 rankings for the Dutch Caribbean islands are now available at www.dutchcaribbeanlegalportal.com. In the following months, DCLP will also publish the top 10 ranking for Suriname and the top 25 ranking of the Dutch Caribbean.
Source: Dutch Caribbean Legal Portal
