Introduction
Julia Smith Gibbons (born December 23, 1950 in Pulaski, Tennessee) is a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Background
Gibbons grew up in the rural Tennessee town of Pulaski. Gibbons received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Vanderbilt University and a Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law. After graduation, she served as a law clerk to Sixth Circuit Judge William Ernest Miller. She was in private practice from 1976 to 1979 before joining Governor Lamar Alexander's staff as a legal advisor in 1979. In 1981, she left the Governor's staff to become a state trial judge in Tennessee.
Federal judicial service
District court service
Gibbons was first appointed to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan on June 7, 1983. She served as a judge on the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee until her appointment by President George W. Bush to the Sixth Circuit. In 2003, she discussed her views on women in the judiciary at a University of Virginia School of Law event.
Sixth Circuit nomination and confirmation
Gibbons was nominated to the Sixth Circuit by Bush on October 9, 2001, to fill a seat vacated by Judge Gilbert Stroud Merritt, Jr., who had assumed Senior status. She was confirmed [1] 95-0 by the United States Senate on July 29, 2002. Gibbons was the first judge nominated to the Sixth Circuit by Bush and confirmed by the Senate.
Personal
Her husband, Bill Gibbons, is the former District Attorney General of Shelby County, Tennessee, the county that contains Memphis. Bill Gibbons was a 2010 Republican gubernatorial candidate for the state of Tennessee.