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. 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 a member of the Editorial Board 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. Judicial Service State Court Service In 1981, Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander appointed Gibbons to serve as a judge of the Tennessee Circuit Court for the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, which has jurisdiction over Macon, Jackson, Smith, Trousdale, and Wilson Counties. She was elected to a full term in 1982. She is the first woman trial judge of a court of record in Tennessee. District Court Service Gibbons was nominated by President Ronald Reagan on April 12, 1983, to a seat on the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee vacated by Judge Harry W. Wellford. She was confirmed by the United States Senate on June 6, 1983, and received commission on June 7, 1983. She served as Chief Judge from 1994 to 2000. Her service terminated on August 2, 2002, due to elevation to the Sixth Circuit. Court of Appeals Service Gibbons was nominated by President George W. Bush on October 9, 2001, to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit vacated by Judge Gilbert S. Merritt Jr. She was confirmed by the Senate on July 29, 2002 by a 95–0 vote. Gibbons was the first judge nominated to the Sixth Circuit by Bush and confirmed by the Senate. She received her commission on July