Today, the School of Law continues to provide excellent legal training to its students through a myriad of unique opportunities found nowhere else, such as the London Maymester program created in 2004, the Konduros Leadership Program developed in 2015, and the Palmetto Leader in 2021.
With more than 50 full-time faculty, students today can choose from more than 100 upper-level courses, 12 dual degree programs, and variety of experiential learning opportunities including clinics, externships and capstone courses.
New faculty have been strategically hired to strengthen specialty law areas including health law, law and technology, small business practice, environmental law, and children’s law.
The diversity of the student body has also grown at South Carolina Law. In recent years, roughly 50 percent of all students are female and around 20 percent identify as non-white. In 2017, Chelsea Evans was named the first African-American editor-in-chief of the South Carolina Law Review.
Our alumni are now more than 10,000 strong, and can be found all across the globe. They are our greatest resource to provide for the future of this school now and in the years to come.
2017 was a big year for South Carolina Law, as it celebrated its 150th anniversary and moved into its current home.
The effort to create this new building was years in the making, but it finally came to fruition under the guidance of Dean Robert M. Wilcox. It was dedicated on Sept. 14, 2017, and United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito cut the ribbon and delivered the keynote address.
While it is the fourth university building specifically for the school, it is the first School of Law building to have the name of the school engraved in stone above its entrance. As such, it opens with a permanence of presence and purpose not always associated with the three previous law school buildings. Its classical exterior harkens to the past, but inside it offers a fresh and modern interior style, with copious amounts of glass and natural light. And while its construction materials are a durable blend of brick, limestone, and granite, its hallmark is a flexible design, allowing it to adapt nimbly as legal education changes in the years ahead. In short, it is uniquely ours.
In August 2020, William C. Hubbard, a former president of the American Bar Association and the current chair of the board of the World Justice Project, was named dean. Under his leadership, new initiatives have been and will be created that will keep South Carolina Law as a leader in legal education in our state and around the nation.
On November 10, 2023, the University of South Carolina’s Board of Trustees met to approve the new name for the law school: the University of South Carolina Joseph F. Rice School of Law, honoring Joseph F. Rice ‘76, '79 and his family’s generosity and dedication to the law school. Their $30 million investment will result in an endowed student scholarship fund producing numerous three-year full and partial scholarships; at least four new endowed professorships; stipends for students completing a children’s law concentration; career and professional development funding for students; and additional training, awards, and support.