A second-year law student last night captured the 1993 presidency of the Harvard Law Review, marking the end of a tumultuous year for the publication.

Van L. Nguyen, who is married with two children, was elected by a majority vote of the editors of the Review.

The president is traditionally the first officer chosen by the Review. The other officers are to be elected over the next week, according to Nguyen. That selection process has been changed to diminish the president's power in choosing officers, after last spring's troubles.

Reached late last night, Nguyen would not comment on his goals for the coming year.

Last spring, the Review became the focus of campus-wide controversy when outgoing editors published an in-house parody of an article by slain feminist legal scholar Mary Joe Frug.

And in the past few months, the Review has been rocked by internal charges of race and gender discrimination by its president, Emily R. Schulman '85. Schulman was cleared of the charges in an internal inquiry by Ralph D. Gants '76, who submitted his report to the trustees of the Review last month.

Now, it seems, the controversies have caused change at the Review from within. The second-year editors decided in their transition period to change the process of electing the officers of the Review.

Last year, the new president had the final choice of whom to appoint to the other offices from among a group of people that secured the most votes in the open election.

Editors of the Review alleged that Schulman had misused her power, charging the president told Elizabeth Wolstein she would not choose her as managing editor because it wouldn't look good to have two women in charge.

This year, the new president will not have final choice over whom to select as officers, according to Nguyen. The officers will be chosen by a vote of all the editors