I work at Bowditch and Dewey, which is a 120-year-old law firm, and one of my partners, he is like one of the greatest litigators of all time. He just took me under his wing, he takes all of us under his wing. So just having the ability to have access to one of the most well-respected lawyers in the city really helps you to gain invitations to rooms you wouldn't necessarily be invited in. And then once you get there, you prove yourself, and suddenly you're invited to do lots of things. You know? So I think mentorship from the legal community in terms of Bowditch and Dewey. But then there are women who run other companies that I just sort of met along the way who helped me get into other rooms that Mike Angelini is not going to get into, certain rooms like Linda Cavaioli from the YWCA used to. It's like the mentors have been people who were, I think, excited to see a Worcester kid grow up and stay in Worcester and succeed. I've been lucky in that way, too, where people just offered help, and I quickly knew it was okay to ask for help or to reach out to people and make connections. But it's been in the professional world, definitely, that I've gotten my most mentorship and my best friendships are other women who don't necessarily work at the same firm as me or are even lawyers, but they're in positions of—I don't want to say power—they're in high level positions, and they struggle with sort of the same things I do, where it's tiring to be the only chick in the room and kind of young still. It used to be really hard for me. I'd be 32 years old, looking around, there’s nobody under the age of 60, all white dudes. And it's nice to have people who've already done it, or people who are doing it in other spaces to just talk to throughout the time. I don't know. I think I would have gone crazy by now, 14 years later, because there's not that many women. All of my lawsuits, it's very few that I have women as opposing counsel. So, it's nice to have women outside of my every—like in my real interactions. I'd argue that I'm one of the few women litigators, business litigators, at the whole firm. Everybody has their niches, but I'm like the traditional—when you picture what I do, you picture a 50-year-old white man. So, it's nice to have women who, whether they sit in healthcare or in nonprofits, are the equivalent. They expect me to be a 50-year-old white guy, and here I am.
AiVi Nguyen was born in Worcester, Great Brook Valley in 1984. She went to Holy Name High School and received her higher education at the University of Pennsylvania where she received her undergraduate degree and Boston College where she went to law school and graduated in 2009. She is Vietnamese American, born to Vietnamese immigrant parents. She's lived in Worcester most of her life, and works as a lawyer at Bowditch and Dewey. AiVi strives for there to be more women in positions of power especially in Worcester, MA and sits on many boards including the Kennedy Community Health Center. She likes to serve on that board as well as many others because it gives her the chance to give back to her community.