Joseph Rice, Lowcountry Lawyer Who Took On Big Tobacco, Dies at 72

Joseph F. Rice, a formidable negotiator who helped states extract multibillion-dollar settlements from tobacco companies and the opioid industry, fundamentally reshaping how corporate America is held accountable for wrongdoing, died on Sept. 3 in Mount Pleasant, S.C., a Lowcountry town near Charleston. He was 72.

A representative for his firm, Motley Rice, said the cause was a cardiac event, which he experienced while at his desk in his law office.

Mr. Rice wore cowboy boots and Southern charm at the bargaining table, where he squared off against hot shot corporate lawyers over astronomical sums of money.

“They were petrified of him,” Jayne Conroy, a lawyer with Simmons Hanly Conroy, an Illinois-based firm that collaborated with Motley Rice, said in an interview. “He was smarter than everyone else. But he was also charismatic and likable, so he could get people to do things and make deals.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/09/us/joe-rice-dead.html