KO Opening Assembly 2011-2012

Alums, siblings tell how KO affected their lives

Kingswood Oxford School welcomed a pair of sibling alumni -- one a federal prosecutor and former White House attorney and the other a Justice Department attorney -- at the 2011-2012 Opening Assembly Thursday, Sept. 1.

Alex Nguyen, a 1995 KO graduate, and his sister Caroline Nguyen, a 1996 KO graduate, spoke of the important role that the School played in their lives.

"I really think of KO as a building block in my career and where I am today," said Caroline Nguyen, who now works as senior counsel in the Office of Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice, where she helps draft policy proposals, regulations and legislation on novel issues affecting the law enforcement community.

She said she learned how to craft an argument in KO's Forensic Union and how to negotiate in Model U.N. Today she works to create policy that her brother then enforces in the court system.

Alex Nguyen, who serves as a federal prosecutor in Philadelphia, pointed out that KO's mission of inspiring students to excel and to lead lives of integrity and involvement extends to life after high school. "Integrity and involvement really matter," he said. "My goal is not just to win the case but to win it fairly. You have to play by the rules."

While at KO, he was speaker of the Student Government, associate editor of the KO News, and president of Forensic Union. He then went on to receive his bachelor's degree from Harvard University and his law degree from Yale Law School.

Prior to his time as a prosecutor, he was assistant counsel to the Office of the Office of the White House Counsel in Washington, D.C. He also worked as an attorney for the international law firm of Kirkland & Ellis LLP in Chicago and Washington, D.C., handling multimillion dollar cases. He has served as the executive director of the Asian American Action Fund, a political action committee dedicated to empowering Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and on the board of the Asian Pacific American Bar Association's Asian Educational Fund.

He was also a journalist at the political magazines The New Republic and The American Prospect. His writing has appeared in many publications, including The Hartford Courant and Washington Monthly. He won the 2000 National Award for Education Reporting and was co-founder of InTheFray Magazine, an online publication dedicated to issues of diversity, identity and community.

During her time at KO, Caroline Nguyen was active in various organizations, including the KO News, volleyball and Student Government. She earned her bachelor's degree in social studies from Harvard College, graduated with an M.P.A. from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and obtained her law degree from Columbia Law School.

Before joining the DOJ, she was a senior associate at WilmerHale, a global law firm based in Washington, D.C., where she focused on multimillion and billion dollar cases involving antitrust and competition, as well as intellectual property.

Before her legal studies, she was an Urban Fellow in the New York City Department of Health, where she worked on legislation prohibiting smoking in New York City restaurants, helped community organizations develop cessation programs and collaborated with the World Health Organization to promote anti-tobacco efforts worldwide.

Outside of work, she co-chairs the Legislative Committee of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association and is the founding president of the Vietnamese American Bar Association of the Greater Washington DC Area.

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