Nelson Mullins senior partner Richard Riley. Photo: Forrest Briggs.

South Carolina's motto, dum spiro spero, means “while I breathe, I hope.” It could be Dick Riley's motto as well.

Growing up, Riley always knew he'd be a lawyer. South Carolina in the mid-1950s was still a racially segregated, educational backwater, and he decided to use the law to improve education.

“We were at the bottom of the sack in education in everything,” Riley says. “I was determined to make South Carolina a leader.”

Riley, who is now 85 and a senior partner of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, was elected to the South Carolina legislature in 1963, soon after he joined his father and brother's law practice in Greenville. After 14 years as a progressive reformer, he was elected governor in 1978.

Voters amended the state constitution so he could run for a second term, and he won in a landslide.

It took a tenacious grassroots campaign for Riley to pass the sweeping reforms of the Education Improvement Act in 1984. It allocated $219 million for 61 initiatives to raise standards; reduce class sizes; add early childhood programs, remedial and advanced classes; and increase teacher pay.

The legislation was funded by a penny sales tax that took a statewide “people power” movement to pass, featuring public forums that attracted thousands of South Carolinians.

“We got the public involved and finally forced the legislature to get behind it,” Riley says. His team won buy-in from business leaders seeking to attract new industry, as well as teachers, school administrators and parents.

“It's bottom-up and top-down reform,” says Terry Peterson, Riley's educational adviser since his days as governor. “You need good policy and funding, but you've got to get the people on the ground excited about good education—and give them the tools.”

Riley joined South Carolina's biggest firm, Nelson Mullins, after leaving office. He went to Washington, D.C., in 1993 to head up staffing for President Bill Clinton's Cabinet-level departments, and Clinton then made him secretary of education. He turned down Clinton's subsequent offer of a Supreme Court appointment.

“I was in love with what I was doing,” he says. “It was what I'd aspired to all my life. In Washington, with my key officers, I could make decisions that impacted 50 million children.”

As education secretary, Riley used the same progressive yet pragmatic tactics to encourage states to improve teaching and learning standards. His legacies include after-school learning centers for low-income children, internet access for all schools, and expanded grants and loans for college.

In South Carolina, the educational advances Riley championed have lost ground as subsequent administrations diverted funds from the penny tax. But Riley remains upbeat, energetic and as busy as ever.

He's working through EducationCounsel, a Nelson Mullins consultancy, and the Richard W. Riley Institute at Furman University for new education advances. The Riley Institute has partnered with California's pioneering New Tech Network to win a federal grant for 13 pilot schools in rural South Carolina towns that teach through projects, like planning a golf course to learn geometry angles. More are in the works.

“Frankly, we need another people's movement for education—and we need it for the country,” Riley says.

Advice to young lawyers: “Be a listener. Don't be thinking about just your ideas. Listen to what everybody is saying and respond to it. Be a worker. Be prepared and strong on research.”

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