She won the Root Tilden Public Interest Scholarship to New York University School of Law,[3] where she earned her Juris Doctor in 1984.

[4] In her non-litigation work in the 1990s, Rice served as counsel to the Watts gang truce and spearheaded a statewide campaign to save equal opportunity programs.

Mayors Tom Bradley and Richard Riordan appointed Rice to the governing board of Los Angeles’ Department of Water and Power where she served as president and enacted contracting reforms and environmental advances.

In these and other cases, Rice has led multi-racial coalitions of lawyers and clients to win more than $4 billion of injunctive relief and damages.

After a lengthy review of the LAPD's process, Rice concluded that Dorner's allegations of racism and bias were unfounded and that the firing was justified.