Opioid MDL Co-Lead Counsel: Polster Names Donald Migliori to Succeed the Late Joe Rice

Donald A. Migliori is the new opioid MDL co-lead counsel: on 23 September 2026, Judge Dan Aaron Polster of the Northern District of Ohio appointed the Motley Rice managing partner to lead plaintiffs in In re National Prescription Opiate Litigation, MDL No. 2804, in place of firm co-founder Joseph F. "Joe" Rice, who died on 3 September at 72. The order keeps Motley Rice in one of the three co-lead chairs Judge Polster created in January 2018, and it lands in the middle of the most contested live phase of the case, the plaintiffs' push against pharmacy benefit managers, which is now before the Sixth Circuit on mandamus.

Law360 reported the appointment the day it was made and Mealey's followed on 25 September. Neither report, nor any of the obituaries that ran in South Carolina and national outlets earlier in the month, connects the succession to the procedural state of MDL 2804 or to the new federal rule that governs MDL leadership. This article does both.

Who replaced Joe Rice as opioid MDL co-lead counsel?

Donald Migliori replaced Joe Rice. Judge Polster's 23 September 2026 order names Migliori, a managing partner at Motley Rice LLC in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, as plaintiffs' co-lead counsel in MDL No. 2804. According to Law360, Rice had served in the role for the past eight years, which runs from the court's original leadership order in January 2018.

Migliori is not an outsider to the docket. His firm biography describes him as a key member of the Motley Rice team that represents dozens of cities, towns, counties and townships in the National Prescription Opiate MDL against manufacturers and distributors. Before the opioid work he built a practice in complex asbestos cases, the state tobacco litigation of the 1990s, and the litigation arising from the 11 September 2001 attacks, and he has held leadership positions in other multidistrict litigations involving medical devices, pharmaceuticals, aviation disasters and consumer fraud.

The choice of an internal successor matters for continuity. Motley Rice represents a large book of subdivision and other plaintiffs in the MDL, carries institutional memory of the settlement negotiations Rice led, and has attorneys already embedded in the common-benefit work. Appointing a partner from the same firm avoids a reshuffle of the Plaintiffs' Executive Committee and keeps the negotiation relationships with the remaining defendants in the same hands.

When did Joe Rice die, and what was his role?

Joe Rice died on Thursday, 3 September 2026, at 72, after a cardiac event at his desk in the firm's Mount Pleasant office, according to local and national obituaries. The Motley Rice co-founder was one of the most influential plaintiffs' lawyers of his generation and the chief negotiator for local governments in the opioid litigation.

His career traced the arc of American mass tort practice. After graduating from the University of South Carolina School of Law in 1979, he began practicing at Blatt & Fales in Barnwell, South Carolina. At Ness Motley, the predecessor firm, he was one of the lead negotiators opposite the cigarette makers in the late-1990s state tobacco litigation, talks that press accounts value at $248 billion in total. He co-founded Motley Rice with the late Ron Motley in 2003. In 2023 he and his family gave $30 million to the University of South Carolina's law school, which was renamed the Joseph F. Rice School of Law.

In the opioid MDL, Rice was co-lead counsel and a member of the Plaintiffs' Executive Committee. He led negotiations for the settling subdivisions in the national agreements with the three largest distributors, McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen, and with Johnson & Johnson. The distributors agreed to pay $21 billion and J&J $5 billion, for a combined $26 billion. His firm biography also lists him as co-lead counsel in In re Aqueous Film-Forming Foams Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2873, before Judge Richard Gergel in the District of South Carolina, and as a member of the Plaintiffs' Steering Committee that Judge Charles Breyer appointed in the McKinsey & Co. opioid MDL in the Northern District of California. No successor appointment in either of those proceedings had been reported as of 27 September 2026.

Who are the co-lead counsel in the National Prescription Opiate Litigation?

After the 23 September order, the three plaintiffs' co-leads are Donald Migliori (Motley Rice), Paul J. Hanly Jr. (Simmons Hanly Conroy) and Paul T. Farrell Jr. (now of Farrell & Fuller). Hanly and Farrell have held their seats since Judge Polster's original appointments in January 2018, when Rice, Hanly and Farrell, then of Greene, Ketchum, Farrell, Bailey & Tweel, were named together. Peter H. Weinberger of Spangenberg Shibley & Liber in Cleveland serves as plaintiffs' liaison counsel.

Role	2018 appointment	After 23 September 2026
Co-lead counsel	Joseph F. Rice (Motley Rice)	Donald A. Migliori (Motley Rice)
Co-lead counsel	Paul J. Hanly Jr. (Simmons Hanly Conroy)	Unchanged
Co-lead counsel	Paul T. Farrell Jr. (Greene Ketchum; now Farrell & Fuller)	Unchanged
Plaintiffs' liaison counsel	Peter H. Weinberger (Spangenberg Shibley & Liber)	Unchanged
Transferee judge	Dan Aaron Polster (N.D. Ohio)	Unchanged

Why the opioid MDL co-lead counsel appointment matters now

A leadership change in a nine-year-old MDL could look ceremonial. The timing makes it anything but. MDL 2804's live work has shifted from manufacturers, distributors and pharmacy chains, most of which have settled nationally, to the pharmacy benefit managers, and that fight is being waged simultaneously in the transferee court and the Sixth Circuit.

On 27 July 2026 Judge Polster permitted roughly 800 plaintiffs to amend their complaints to add claims against OptumRx and Express Scripts. The PBMs sought a writ of mandamus. Their petition, In re OptumRx, Inc., No. 26-3780, was docketed on 27 August 2026, and the Sixth Circuit ordered the Plaintiffs' Executive Committee to respond on 1 September. On 17 September Judge Polster filed his own answer, rejecting what he called the PBMs' "spurious insinuations" about his motives and warning that breaking the consolidated suits apart would produce disarray. One day later, in Commonwealth of Kentucky v. Express Scripts, Inc., No. 25-5866, a Sixth Circuit panel held that Kentucky's PBM opioid suit belongs in federal court under the federal officer removal statute, following Ohio ex rel. Yost v. Ascent Health Services, LLC, decided in January 2026.

Rice died two days after the response order and two weeks before the judge's answer. The co-lead seat therefore sat vacant while the plaintiffs' side was defending the single most consequential case-management order of the PBM phase. Filling it with a partner from the same firm lets the Plaintiffs' Executive Committee litigate the mandamus and any remand to Judge Polster without a new lawyer learning the record.

Does the leadership change affect the PBM opioid cases?

It changes who speaks for the plaintiffs, not the claims or the schedule. Nothing in the reports of the 23 September order suggests any stay, reassignment or change in the PBM track, and the order does not alter the 27 July amendment ruling under review. The practical effect is continuity: the PBM plaintiffs keep a full three-member co-lead bench while the Sixth Circuit decides the mandamus petition and while federal-officer removal rulings continue to route state-filed PBM suits into federal court.

What happens to MDL leadership when a lead lawyer dies?

The transferee judge appoints a successor, and there is no automatic line of succession. Leadership in a federal MDL is a creature of court order, not of engagement letters, so a co-lead's firm does not inherit the seat as of right. Judge Polster could have promoted a member of the existing executive committee, opened applications, or left two co-leads in place. The 23 September order chose continuity within the same firm.

That choice now sits inside a formal framework. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16.1, the first rule written specifically for MDLs, took effect on 1 December 2025. It encourages the transferee court to hold an initial management conference and asks the parties to report their views on whether leadership counsel should be appointed and, if so, on the timing, structure, selection procedure and whether appointments should be reviewed periodically. The rule is hortatory; it uses "should," not "must." MDL 2804 predates it by nearly eight years, but a mid-course vacancy is exactly the kind of event its periodic-review language contemplates, and objectors in other dockets are likely to cite it when a leadership seat opens.

Two features of MDL leadership make succession consequential beyond one docket:

• Common-benefit economics. Lead counsel direct the work that is compensated from a Common Benefit Fund, so a change at the top can shift which firms do and bill that work.
• Settlement authority. In a Mass Tort that resolves through a Global Settlement, co-leads negotiate the deal architecture. Keeping negotiators who know the history lowers the transaction cost of the next deal.

What is left in the opioid MDL in 2026?

The biggest defendants are largely resolved. National agreements with the three large distributors and Johnson & Johnson ($26 billion), with the major pharmacy chains, and with other manufacturers have pushed total national opioid settlement funding past $50 billion. The $7.4 billion Purdue Pharma and Sackler family settlement became legally effective on 1 May 2026.

What remains is narrower but still large. The PBM claims against OptumRx and Express Scripts, now joined in roughly 800 amended complaints, are the principal open front. Trial-track work against pharmacies has also been reshaped by state law: in December 2024 the Supreme Court of Ohio held that the Ohio Product Liability Act abrogates common-law public nuisance claims against pharmacies arising from the sale of prescription opioids, undercutting the roughly $650 million abatement judgment Lake and Trumbull counties won in the MDL in 2022.

Date	Event
December 2017	JPML centralizes opioid cases in the Northern District of Ohio as MDL No. 2804 before Judge Polster
January 2018	Judge Polster appoints Rice, Hanly and Farrell as co-lead counsel
2021-2022	$26 billion distributor and J&J national settlements; Rice leads subdivision negotiations
August 2022	About $650 million abatement judgment for Lake and Trumbull counties against pharmacy chains
December 2024	Supreme Court of Ohio holds the product liability act bars those public nuisance claims
1 December 2025	Fed. R. Civ. P. 16.1 takes effect
1 May 2026	$7.4 billion Purdue/Sackler settlement becomes effective
27 July 2026	Order letting about 800 plaintiffs add PBM claims
27 August 2026	PBMs' mandamus petition docketed, No. 26-3780
3 September 2026	Joe Rice dies
17-18 September 2026	Judge Polster answers the petition; Sixth Circuit keeps Kentucky's PBM case in federal court
23 September 2026	Migliori appointed co-lead counsel

What it means for plaintiffs' firms, defendants and funders

Plaintiffs' firms with cases in MDL 2804. Expect no change in filing obligations or deadlines. Firms holding PBM claims should watch for the Sixth Circuit's mandamus ruling; the co-lead bench that will answer any remand or re-briefing order is now complete again.

PBM defendants. The succession removes any argument that plaintiffs' leadership is under-resourced at a critical stage. It also means the negotiators across the table in any PBM resolution discussions will include a lawyer from the firm that led the distributor and J&J deals.

Other MDLs where Rice held a seat. The AFFF MDL and the McKinsey opioid MDL will need their own orders. Counsel in those dockets should expect the same question Judge Polster answered: internal successor, open application, or a smaller leadership group.

Litigation funders and common-benefit claimants. Leadership changes can affect who controls common-benefit assignments and fee petitions. A same-firm successor minimizes that disruption, but fee applicants in long-running MDLs should track whether courts use Rule 16.1's periodic-review language to revisit leadership composition when vacancies arise.

The broader personal injury bar. Rice's death removes a negotiator who shaped the template for public-entity mass tort settlements, from tobacco through opioids. How quickly courts fill such seats, and with whom, is becoming a governance question in its own right as first-generation MDL leaders age out.

Frequently asked questions

Who is the new co-lead counsel in the opioid MDL?

Donald A. Migliori, a managing partner of Motley Rice LLC, was appointed co-lead counsel for plaintiffs in MDL No. 2804 by Judge Dan Aaron Polster on 23 September 2026.

Why was a new opioid MDL co-lead counsel appointed?

The seat opened when Joe Rice, the Motley Rice co-founder who had held it since January 2018, died of a cardiac event on 3 September 2026 at age 72.

Who are the other opioid MDL co-leads?

Paul J. Hanly Jr. of Simmons Hanly Conroy and Paul T. Farrell Jr. of Farrell & Fuller remain co-lead counsel, and Peter H. Weinberger of Spangenberg Shibley & Liber remains plaintiffs' liaison counsel.

Does the appointment change the PBM opioid lawsuits?

No reported change to claims or schedules accompanied the order; the PBM claims against OptumRx and Express Scripts continue, subject to the Sixth Circuit's decision on the mandamus petition in In re OptumRx, Inc., No. 26-3780.

How much have opioid settlements paid so far?

National opioid settlements with manufacturers, distributors and pharmacy chains exceed $50 billion in total, including the $26 billion distributor and J&J deal and the $7.4 billion Purdue and Sackler settlement that took effect on 1 May 2026.

What rule governs MDL leadership appointments?

Transferee judges appoint leadership under their case-management authority, and since 1 December 2025 Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16.1 asks courts to address the selection procedure, structure and periodic review of leadership counsel.