Judge Julia S. Gibbons

2025 Lewis F. Powell Jr Award for Professionalism and Ethics

Julia S. Gibbons has been selected to receive the prestigious 2025 American Inns of Court Lewis F. Powell Jr.Award for Professionalism and Ethics, which recognizes attorneys, judges, government officials, journalists, or others who have rendered exemplary service in the areas of professionalism, ethics, civility, and excellence. Gibbons, a senior judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, will receive the award at the American Inns of Court 2025 Celebration of Excellence at the Supreme Court of the United States.

Former law clerk Sheryl H. Lipman cited Gibbons’s status as a role model for women in the legal field as one of her reasons for nominating her mentor. “Judge Gibbons inspired scores of women lawyers in Memphis and beyond to excel in the profession, simply by serving as a shining example of what one can achieve,” writes Lipman, now chief district judge for the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee. 

Gibbons served as president of the Association for Women Attorneys in 1993, for example, and received the association’s Marion Griffin-Frances Loring Award recognizing those who have made outstanding contributions to women in the legal profession. More recently, Gibbons helped establish the Memphis chapter of the Tennessee Women’s Forum, which brings together women leaders throughout the community. Earlier this year, Gibbons was honored with the Steadfastness Award by the Women of Achievement organization. 

Appointed by President George W. Bush, Gibbons became a U.S. circuit judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in 2002; she assumed senior status in 2024. Earlier in her career, she served as U.S. district judge for the Western District of Tennessee from 1983 to 2002, serving as chief judge from 1994 to 2000. From 1981 to 1983, she was circuit court judge for the 15th Judicial Circuit’s Division VI, becoming the first female trial judge of a court of record in Tennessee. Prior to her judicial career, Gibbons was a legal advisor to Governor Lamar Alexander and an attorney in private practice. 

Gibbons earned a magna cum laude undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University in 1972 and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. In 1975, she received her law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, where she was a member of the Order of the Coif and the Virginia Law Review editorial board.