Cayman’s legal industry maintained steady activity in the second quarter of 2025, with most practice areas reporting stable or improving levels of work in Cayman Finance’s quarterly sentiment survey. But lawyers were more restrained in their expectations for the months ahead, in a shift from early-year optimism to a more watchful stance going into Q3.
The survey, in cooperation with the Cayman Islands Legal Practitioners Association (CILPA), regularly canvasses lawyers on the level of business activity they are seeing in their daily work. It serves as a health indicator of the financial services industry, because most offshore financial services business begins with a law firm engagement.
Survey participation fell across all practice areas in Q2, making this a smaller sample than the first quarter. Even so, the results reveal a mixed picture across Cayman’s legal industry. Core transactional areas such as corporate and funds showed steady or improving levels of new business, though with more cautious outlooks. Private client practices were notably busier, reflecting sustained demand for wealth management and trust work, while litigation also had a stronger quarter despite a dip in confidence about the near future.
Capital markets lawyers reported more activity overall, although responses remained widely dispersed and suggest an uneven environment. The virtual assets sector, which had started the year with very strong momentum, eased back slightly but continues to score comparatively highly relative to other practice areas. Insurance, with very few responses, offered limited insights but suggested quieter conditions.
Taken together, the survey points to steady activity in the legal market, with specific sectors – particularly private client, corporate and capital markets – showing signs of underlying resilience, while others, including funds and virtual assets, are heading more cautiously into the next quarter.
The Cayman Finance sentiment survey asks lawyers in which sectors they operate, how busy they were comparatively in the past quarter, how much of their work involved new business, and their personal outlook for activity in the next quarter.
The responses based on a sentiment scale of five different options (very low, somewhat low, about average, somewhat high, very high) are then converted into a sentiment score, and the average score is calculated for each sector.
For detailed Q2/2025 results, please see below:
