Irene Lawrence is the principal of Lawrence Associates. She has been a full-time professional tax practitioner since 1985. After passing the Internal Revenue Service’s two-day exam in 1987, she started her own practice, Lawrence Associates, in Albany, California, moving to Palo Alto, California, in 1997.

As a tax practitioner, Irene specializes in individual and small business income tax preparation. She also prepares returns for U.S. citizens living outside the United States, having learned by being an expatriate herself and by working for Chevron Corporation’s Expatriate Tax Division.

Irene is a member of the National Association of Enrolled Agents (NAEA), the California Association of Enrolled Agents (CSEA), and the Mission Society of Enrolled Agents. Formerly, she was a member of the East Bay Association of Enrolled Agents, where she served as President in 1994-95. She was been a member of CSEA’s Ethics and Professional Conduct Committee from 1994 through 2003, including five years as its chair. She has served on CSEA’s Nominating Committee three times, chairing it in 2001-2002. She has also served on the Ethics and Professional Conduct Committee of the National Association of Enrolled Agents three times, chairing it in 1999-2000. From 1995 to 1998 she served a three-year term on the IRS Practitioners’ Panel for the IRS San Francisco District. She is also a Fellow of the National Tax Practice Institute.

Irene served as CSEA Secretary in 2003-2004, Second Vice-President in 2004-2005, and First Vice President in 2005-2006. She is currently President of CSEA. She has published articles and presented programs on financial planning and tax subjects for nonspecialists as well as professionals.

Before starting her own practice, Irene worked in fee-only financial planning firms in Oakland and San Francisco. She has also done tax work for several Bay Area firms, including H & R Block, Baker & Heller, Morris and Morris, and Chevron Corporation’s Expatriate Tax Services. She discontinued the financial planning portion of her practice in 1998.

Before becoming an Enrolled Agent, Irene was a college professor, most recently at the University of California at Davis and at Alaska Pacific University. Earlier, she spent eight years teaching high school in Liberia, West Africa, and in California. She earned a Bachelor of Science in mathematics from Stanford University, received a Master of Divinity with Distinction from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, holds a Ph.D. in linguistics and theology from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, and is the author of a book and articles in her academic field.