WALNUT, Calif.––Jimmy Nguyen, a nationally recognized attorney and former Mt. SAC forensics champion, will be honored as Mt. San Antonio College’s “Alumnus of the Year” at the college’s 64th commencement on Friday, June 11, 6:30 p.m., at the campus stadium. “My two years attending and competing for Mt. SAC’s forensics team, and then my later years helping coach the team, were the most defining years of my life,” said Nguyen, who attended Mt. SAC from 1991-93. “That experience profoundly shaped both my professional and personal life.”
Named one of the 500 leading lawyers in the United States by Lawdragon in 2008, Nguyen is a partner in the Beverly Hills office of Wildman, Harrold, Allen & Dixon, a major corporate law firm. Providing services in diverse fields, he is considered a “renaissance” attorney, and in 2010, the Daily Journal called him a “one-stop shop for companies in entertainment, technology, advertising, sports and other industries.” His clients include top companies such as CBS Films, Major League Baseball Properties, Kia Motors, Sony Computer Entertainment America, and BBC Worldwide Americas. He has also been named a Southern California “super lawyer” by Law & Politics and Los Angeles magazines for the past six years.
Nguyen also serves as chair of the executive committee for the State Bar of California Intellectual Property Law Section and on the board of Equality California, the state’s leading political and civil rights organization serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.
As a student at Mt. SAC, he competed for the college’s forensics team. He was a seven-time national gold medalist and twice won the Bovero-Tabor Award, which is given to the top overall speaker at the prestigious Phi Rho Pi National Forensics Tournament. He went on to graduate magna cum laude, at age 19, from UCLA and earned his law degree from USC, where he was the youngest member of his class at age 22. Over the ensuing years, Nguyen has returned to Mt. SAC to help coach forensics teams to several national titles.
“Professionally, those years at Mt. SAC elevated my public speaking skills to a whole new level and were partly responsible for leading me to law school,” Nguyen said. “Every day in my legal career, I call upon the communication, analytical, writing, and coaching skills I honed at Mt. SAC.”
His selection as Mt. SAC’s “Alumnus of the Year” was based on professional accomplishments as well as philanthropic and community activities.
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