How I Started My Own Law Firm with Excello Law: Ocean Legal

Starting our own law firm: Building Ocean Legal

Lucy Goff and Jennie Harris founded Ocean Legal in January 2025. Ocean Legal is a specialist marine law firm, operating as part of the Excello Law “House of Brands,” offering fixed-fee, transparent pricing for yacht owners, marine businesses, insurers, and ports, focusing on practical, client-centric legal advice without traditional hourly billing.

Lucy and Jennie discuss why they chose to set up their own legal practice with Excello Law.

The reason we left traditional law is twofold. There was a personal element, but also a chance to do something different for our clients. We came from a traditional law firm, and while that worked, the reality was very rigid. The marine industry isn’t a 9 to 5 world but our old firm very much was. We had a vision of starting our own legal practice, as it would allow us to mirror the realities of our clients’ industries.

From the very beginning, we knew we wanted to do things differently. We had the ideas, the expertise and the motivation to build a practice that truly suited our clients’ needs. But we also knew that setting up a law firm comes with a huge infrastructure challenge – including the need for compliance, finance, insurance, marketing and all the operational systems that make a practice function smoothly.

Partnering with Excello Law allowed us to set up our own legal practice while relying on their support for those essential elements. This meant we could focus entirely on building and growing our firm and, most importantly, on delivering exceptional service to our clients.

In a traditional firm we’d felt the frustrations of fixed-fee billing models, rigid timesheets and the pressure to fill hours rather than focus on meaningful work. With the freedom Excello provided, we could build tailored solutions for our clients in the superyacht and marine sectors. That freedom made us immediately happier and more motivated, because we could focus on creating value rather than checking boxes.

Ocean Legal is born

When it came to setting up our practice, we sat down and put together a full business plan that asked three simple questions:

1. Who do we serve?
2. How do we do what we do better?
3. How do we make it sustainable?

Those questions became our guiding principles. We looked at our existing network and experience, homed in on our niche, and made decisions from day one that reflected efficiency, transparency and client-focused service. Every process we created, from scoping work to communication protocols, was built to support a fixed-fee model and ensure client satisfaction.

One of the biggest challenges, and one of the most fun parts, was branding. Coming up with a name took weeks of brainstorming… it didn’t help that my surname ‘Goff’ was a really hard fit for a brand name! We wanted something clear, simple and instantly recognisable in the marine sector. That’s how Ocean Legal was born.

Of course, the brand isn’t just our logo or colour palette but the experience we provide. Every piece of marketing, including our launch video, website and materials for clients, reflected our values – that we are specialist marine lawyers offering tailored, fixed-fee solutions. Collaborating with industry bodies, like the charity Safe for Waves, became part of the brand too, reflecting our commitment to the community we serve.

Launching Ocean Legal was exciting but intense. We had just two months of garden leave and we knew we had to make a splash quickly (pardon the pun!). Our launch video went out on LinkedIn, announcing the move and explaining for clients the benefits of working with us. Our key messages were about our offering of more flexibility, fixed and transparent pricing, and responsive service. Within days, clients were reaching out. Some needed reassurance, particularly larger insurance clients who had to satisfy internal approvals before instructing us, but once they saw the support we had from Excello Law, they were confident to follow us.

Building and developing our practice

Even though it’s just the two of us, we have an army behind us. Excello provides marketing support, administrative assistance, compliance advice and paralegal help. It’s been incredible. I remember sending a draft document to the ‘360’ team and getting it back perfectly formatted and polished. It saved us hours, and it allowed us to focus entirely on clients and networking. That support gave us the confidence to be visible in our niche, attend multiple boat shows in a single week and maintain relationships with clients, all while keeping control over our schedules.

The reality is, setting up a practice is hard work. We’ve had late-night calls, meticulous planning sessions and moments where decisions we’d never thought about making became ours to own. But that’s also the joy of it. We can decide when to work, how to work and who to work with – and every choice, every strategy and every success is ours.  That flexibility and empowerment make all the challenges worthwhile.

One of the key lessons we’ve learned is that visibility and consistency matter. We created a structured plan for the year, tracking client interactions, networking opportunities and marketing initiatives. We didn’t just launch and hope, the whole process was intentional. We knew that building trust and credibility in the marine industry would require presence and consistent follow-through, and we were ready to do the work.

Our advice

If we could give advice to anyone considering starting their own practice, it would be to focus on your niche, be confident in your expertise, plan carefully and use the support available. Excello gave us the tools, resources and network to launch successfully, allowing us to focus entirely on what we do best. Ocean Legal isn’t just a law firm, it’s a reflection of our values, our expertise, and our commitment to clients.

The best part? Every time we connect with a client, every successful referral and every positive response to our work feels like a milestone. This is our practice, built the way we want it, with the freedom to grow, learn and enjoy the work we do. And that, for us, has made all the difference.