Honors & Awards
- The Best Lawyers in America®, "Lawyer of the Year", 2023, Utilities Law
- The Best Lawyers in America®, 2013-2026, Litigation - Real Estate, Real Estate Law, Utilities Law
- BV® Preeminent Peer Review Rated by Martindale-Hubbell®
Admissions
Kentucky, 1978
U.S. District Court Eastern District of Kentucky, 1978
Education
University of Louisville School of Law, Louisville, Kentucky, J.D., 1978
University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, B.G.S., 1975
- Honors: Omicron Delta Kappa
- Honors: National Leadership Society
Overview
Brent Rice helped bring McBrayer to Lexington in 1979, when he and our founder Terry McBrayer opened the firm’s first office in the city. Since then, Brent has made his mark on Lexington, both as an attorney and as a community leader.
Brent’s practice focuses on telecommunications law and real estate development. He handles matters for clients in nearly every facet of communications law, from regulatory and transactional issues to legislative matters, wireless infrastructure, and land use. He has guided three Federal Communications Commission–licensed wireless carriers in their initial buildouts and expansions in Kentucky, and his practice group has obtained permissions for well over 2,000 siting locations from the Kentucky Public Services Commission and other local planning commissions.
He also has extensive experience in real estate development and finance, having served regional and national developers for well over 30 years in addition to being a private developer of numerous commercial, multi-family and student housing projects in Kentucky. Through his affiliated companies, including Rice Realty Company, he developed Spring House Community and the award-winning student housing project Grand Campus Community at Eastern Kentucky University. He also represented and participated in the development of the nationally acclaimed 21c Museum Hotel in Lexington, Kentucky. Over the course of his legal career, he has cultivated relationships with banks and private equity lenders, building contractors, design professionals and elected officials at the local, state and federal levels. Clients seek him out for representation because of his well-known reputation for deal-making, getting approvals, and following every matter he handles through to completion.
Brent has also served as a leader in the Lexington community and as an advocate for progress and growth in the city. In 2011, he served as Chairman of the Rupp Arena Arts & Entertainment District Task Force, which was established to create a plan for the city’s future by the development of 47 acres of public property around the Lexington Center. From 2013-2018, he served as Chairman of the Lexington Center Corporation, an agency of the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government responsible for the management and operations of Rupp Arena, the Lexington Center, and the Lexington Opera House. During this tenure, he led the initial planning and design of the $300,000,000 Lexington Convention Center Project and the renovation of Rupp Arena. He also served as the Co-Chairman of the Capital Campaign for the American Cancer Society Hope Lodge. Brent believes that as an attorney, it’s his duty to give back to the community that has given him so much—and he has done just that.
