Mr. Rice was literally born into the oil patch (being the grandson of a pioneer drilling contractor and the son of a Petroleum Engineer), and before entering the legal profession, he worked as a roustabout, rotary floor hand or "roughneck", offshore barge engineer and consulting geologist. Since 1971, he has devoted a major portion of his law practice to matters of interest to the marine and energy industries and their insurers and has been instrumental in the conception, development and introduction of many policy wordings, exclusions and endorsements currently in use in the London, Scandinavian and North American markets. He is currently general manager of Winston Edw. Rice LLC, a firm of his foundation specializing in and limiting its practice to selected matters of marine and energy contract, casualty and insurance law

More particularly, Mr. Rice specializes in marine and energy law, with special emphasis on insurance and reinsurance of those industries. In 1991, he was selected to serve on the Executive Committee of the Maritime Law Association of the United States, and he is one of only 25 Titulary Members of the Comité Maritime International resident in the United States of America. He is a former Associate Member at Lloyd's of London and has served as principal legal advisor to the Energy Wordings Working Party of the Joint Rig & Associated Business Committee of Lloyd's of London and the Institute of London Underwriters. In 1992, Mr. Rice was appointed the USA representative to the Sub-Committee on Off-Shore Mobile Craft of the Comité Maritime International charged with the responsibility of drafting and proposing a new treaty to cover worldwide operations of those special purpose vessels and vehicles, and in 1995, he was appointed by the U.S. Department of State as Private Industry Advisor to the U.S. Delegation to the 73rd Session of the IMO Legal Committee (This work continues).