USC to rename law school after prominent SC lawyer following $30M donation

The University of South Carolina has received a megadonation from a prominent Lowcountry lawyer and USC alumnus. Now the School of Law has a new name: the Joseph F. Rice School of Law.

Joseph Rice, 69, co-founder of Mount Pleasant law firm Motley Rice LLC, has gifted the school $30 million.

More than an estimated 450 people, including Rice’s wife, Lisa, his lawyer-daughter Ann Rice Ervin and other family members, attended the gift’s announcement Friday morning on the open-air plaza in front of the law school. Some details were kept confidential until then.

The money will go towards an endowed student scholarship fund, which will include multiple three-year scholarships, as well as four new endowed professorships. It will also create stipends for law students focusing on children’s law and help fund professional development. Rice’s gift will also establish the Lisa S. Rice and Ann E. Rice Ervin Child Advocacy Award Endowment, to be awarded to students who complete the school’s children’s law concentration.

“Being able to share my success, my luck, my good fortune, feels good,” Rice told the crowd in a speech. “I never imagined back in 1979 when I walked off the stage with my law degree and started to work ... for $18,000 a year, that I would ever be able to donate anything that might change the lives and future of thousands of students.”

Many law students carry massive amounts of debt — the average student has more than $100,000 in student loans, according to the American Bar Association. Rice said he wants to alleviate some of that debt for those who desire to go to law school, but don’t have the financial means to do so.

“I hope those students go forward with the same passion and desire to make a difference and to find their own causes in life,” Rice said. “We all have the opportunity to help produce greater balance for the future of our law schools. For me, the hope is that this endeavor will broaden the spectrum, narrow the gaps and open the doors to more diverse groups of students.”

Rice said that when he applied to the law school in 1976, he didn’t meet the admission requirements and wasn’t accepted. But the law school had a special summer program for those who didn’t quite make it, and if they did well, they would be admitted as a student in the fall. He did well in the summer program, and that’s how he became a USC law school student, he told the crowd.

“I see this opportunity for me and my family as a way to help law students in much the same way as that summer program helped me,” he said.

At times, as Rice spoke, his eyes welled with tears and he had to stop. When he was finished, the crowd gave him a long standing ovation.

University officials had been trying for years to persuade Rice to make a major donation to the law school, efforts Rice referred to in his speech, mentioning former USC president Harris Pastides and former law school dean Rob Wilcox.

“They’ve all been working on me a long time,” Rice said, who also said his contribution would not have been possible without the support of his family and law firm colleagues.

In a moment of introspection, Rice said, “I’ve been lucky that I like to work, to have the drive to right the wrongs. Somehow I’ve been able to create a method for settlement that have resolved many a conflict in our country.”

Rice also told the crowd the law is a kind of another branch of government. “I see the civil litigation process as the fourth branch, existing to help ensure fairness for all... I believe lawyers are here to improve the condition of humanity.”

His law firm, he said, seeks out causes, “not just cases.... we strive to halt misconduct... and to seek repayment to those who have suffered damages.”

In closing, he told the crowd he and his family say to professors and law school students who benefit from the donation, “We believe in you. Go forth. Do something good. Do it well, and better all lives.”

The donation is one of the largest in the university’s history.

“With the Rice family’s transformative gift, the Joseph F. Rice School of Law will grow in stature and reputation, exemplifying excellence at our university,” said USC President Michael Amiridis. “We express our most profound gratitude. We are honored by the confidence you have placed in this university, and we are eager to fulfill your compelling vision.”

Rice attended USC’s law school nearly 50 years ago after attending USC for his undergraduate degree, and has been a longtime supporter of his alma mater. In 2013, he and members of Motley Rice created a scholarship fund and a civil litigation training fund to establish a capstone course in litigation skills. The program has sponsored 26 scholarships thus far.

He and wife Lisa gave $1 million to the law school’s Children’s Law Center in 2021, which ensured a permanent home for the center on Pickens Street. The Rice Athletic Center is also named in the couple’s honor.

“Joe Rice is the pinnacle of the legal profession and he has spent decades pursuing justice,” William Hubbard, dean of the law school, said in a speech. “He is sharing the fruits of that success with this law school and for generations to come.”

In a brief speech, Susan Kuo, law school associate dean for academic affairs, thanked Rice on behalf of the law school’s faculty and staff.

Rice’s firm has served as counsel for several major civil actions in the last 20 years, including the landmark Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, which was settled for $246 billion in the late 1990s — the largest civil settlement in United States history. His resume also includes securing settlements following the 2010 BP oil spill.

The law school is USC’s third academic building named for a donor, the first being the Darla Moore School of Business, and the second being Arnold School of Public Health.

Rice’s sizable donation was extra special to law school dean Hubbard, whom the USC board of trustees hired as dean in 2020 in part because they hoped he would use his numerous connections in the state’s legal community to increase donations. USC has some 10,000-plus living alumni, but only about 10 percent give to the school.

In a closing speech, Hubbard — who had a smile on his face much of the ceremony — called Friday “a day for the ages in the life of our law school and in our state.”

Numerous well-known figures in South Carolina’s legal and political communities attended Friday’s event. They included Gov. Henry McMaster, former S.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Jean Toal, current Associate Justice John Few, state Judge Clifton Newman, state Sens. Dick Harpootlian, D-Richland, and Gerald Malloy, D-Darlington, and state Rep. Bruce Bannister, R-Greenville.

Also attending were U.S. Judge Michelle Childs of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, Judge DeAndrea Benjamin of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, state Judge Jocelyn Newman, U.S. District Judges Joe Anderson and Mary Lewis, and former Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin.

Afterwards, McMaster, a USC law school graduate, told The State newspaper that Rice’s speech was “perfect, inspirational and very important... Those thoughts were enormously powerful.”

Former Supreme Court chief justice Toal, also a USC law school graduate, called the $30 million gift a “game changer.” After being buffeted by COVID, the gift will allow the school to move forward “in some very sophisticated ways,” she said.

Editor’s note: The first name of Ann Rice Ervin was misspelled in an earlier version of this story.