Powerhouse Lowcountry attorney Joe Rice dies

MORNING HEADLINES | Lowcountry attorney Joseph F. Rice, known by most as Joe, died Thursday. A powerhouse negotiator and co-founder of the nationally-recognized plaintiffs’ law firm Motley Rice in Mount Pleasant, he was 72.

“His death today was sudden and unexpected, and we are all heartbroken by this tremendous loss,” the firm said in a statement. “As you know, Joe was far more than a visionary leader to us at Motley Rice. He was a pioneer, an innovator, a fierce advocate for justice and a loyal friend to so many.”

While at predecessor firm Ness Motley, he was one of the lead negotiators across the table from cigarette makers in the so-called Big Tobacco lawsuits in the late 1990s. The talks ended in a $248 billion settlement. More recently, he was named co-lead counsel in a nationwide lawsuit against opioid manufacturers and distributors.

Rice was also one of several lawyers who recently joined the social media giant Meta into a multibillion-dollar settlement expected to bring guardrails to limit children’s exposure to social media. And at the time of his death, he was involved in thousands of water-contamination lawsuits against companies generating toxic “forever chemicals.”

Friends and colleagues described Rice as “a lion among lawyers” and a “giant tree” across several media reports after his death.

“Joe created legal theories to hold wrongdoers accountable that will be written about in the annals of history,” according to a statement by Motley Rice attorney and former S.C. ,Democratic Sen. Marlon Kimpson.

In 2023, Rice and his family donated $30 million to the University of South Carolina law school, which was renamed the USC Joseph F. Rice School of Law. Rice was a 1979 graduate of the law school.

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