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Patrick Vane is a recovering Tax lawyer with 16 years private practice experience. After graduating from Georgetown with an LL.M. in Tax, he practiced with small and large firms in Seattle, WA specializing in corporate tax and estate planning. During his legal career, he represented a number of Seattle area software company founders and early managers. Like a lot of lawyers, Patrick also taught law. He was a professor at Golden Gate University, then a resident Dean and finally a University Provost.
Although the tax and corporate law practice was financially rewarding, Patrick finally realized that he enjoyed three things more than the actual practice of law: Creating new ventures; teaching; and making professionals lives more manageable. (OK, he also liked the idea of making money.)
Students in his classes were mostly professional CPA's going to school at night working toward their Masters degree in Tax. Patrick noticed these students were often very time-stressed, balancing a professional career with family and educational goals. Getting to class was often a big hassle for them.
One evening after class, a tearful masters candidate explained to Patrick that she would not be able to complete the necessary courses for the degree because she had moved and had a child and could no longer make the commute to class after work. That got Patrick to thinking about alternative distribution of courses.
Professionally, Patrick was also hearing from his fellow lawyers how hard it was for them to find time to attend CLE classes given the demands of their practices.
Because they were accountants and lawyers, these students also had to earn professional education credits to maintain their licenses. Many were looking for alternative ways to get their degrees and earn CPE credits without actually attending classes.
Patrick decided to try offering continuing education training to lawyers over the Internet as a way to make the continuing education requirement easier to satisfy for himself and his lawyers friends. The idea caught on. The company (Taecan.com- old English for "to teach") secured some financing and Patrick left his secure jobs at the law firm and the University to pursue the dream of delivering continuing education over the Internet.
Taecan.com is now the largest distributor of CLE over the Internet, offering a wide variety of courses approved in most states. The company has contracts with large law firms, corporations and private industry to train lawyers online for CLE. It has established relationships with legal publishing houses (Lexis-Nexis) and many bar associations for distribution of CLE to their members.
Patrick has transitioned from a pure law practice, to education, to Internet Start-Up (he still maintains his law practice), in the last 3 years. He's an example of someone who left the law to pursue a separate but related dream.
The basics:
BA - University of Washington
J.D. - University of San Francisco
LL.M - Georgetown University Law Center
16 years Private Practice (Estate Planning and Corporate)
10 years Academic Admin. -Dean & Provost- Golden Gate Univ.
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