Joseph F. Rice, a formidable negotiator who helped states extract multibillion-dollar settlements from tobacco companies and the opioid industry, died on Sept. 3 in Mount Pleasant, S.C., at age 72. A representative for his firm, Motley Rice, said the cause was a cardiac event. Mr. Rice wore cowboy boots and Southern charm at the bargaining table, where he squared off against corporate lawyers. “They were petrified of him,” said Jayne Conroy of Simmons Hanly Conroy. “He was smarter than everyone else. But he was also charismatic and likable.”

An old school lawyer who drove a pickup truck and rattled off ideas into a Dictaphone, Mr. Rice preferred pragmatism over courtroom theatrics. He relied on a novel legal strategy: States and local governments had public nuisance claims against corporations, in addition to product liability claims brought by individual consumers. By bringing state and local governments into the lawsuits as plaintiffs, Mr. Rice shifted the narrative from individual injuries to the sweeping public costs of corporate misconduct.

The strategy Mr. Rice helped pioneer is still being used to take on powerful industries. Motley Rice represents state attorneys suing social media companies for allegedly harming the mental health of teenagers. Mr. Rice’s firm stood to make as much as $2 billion for its work on the $206 billion settlement between tobacco companies and states in 1998. Legal scholars say the enormous payments to lawyers were a side effect of deals that ultimately benefited public health.