Julia Smith Gibbons

Julia Smith Gibbons (born December 23, 1950) is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Education and career Gibbons was born and grew up in Pulaski, Tennessee. She attended public schools and was the valedictorian at Giles County High School, class of 1968. She received a Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, from Vanderbilt University in 1972 and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She received a Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1975, where she was elected to Order of the Coif and was an editor of the Virginia Law Review. After graduation, from 1975 to 1976, she served as a law clerk to the late Honorable William Ernest Miller, Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. She was admitted to the Tennessee bar in 1975. She was in private practice from 1976 to 1979 with the Memphis firm of Farris, Hancock, Gilman, Branan & Lanier. In 1979, she joined Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander's staff as a legal advisor.