Mr. Gibbins grew up in Austin, Texas. In high school, he was a standout athlete earning all-state honors in football and track. He then attended Southwestern University, in Georgetown, Texas, where he played football and ran track. He earned all-conference honors. Mr. Gibbins graduated with high honors from Southwestern University while never making below an A- in any course. His undergraduate degree is in business. While at Southwestern, Mr. Gibbins studied abroad in Granada, Spain. There, he instantly fell in love with the lazy afternoons while taking many siestas and gained an advanced proficiency in the Spanish language.
Following his undergraduate studies, Mr. Gibbins attended Texas Tech School of Law, where he again graduated with high honors. During the summer following his first year of law school, Mr. Gibbins worked as a law clerk for Mr. Stephen Hamilton, the managing partner and founder of Texas Criminal Defense Group. To this day, Mr. Gibbins will tell anyone that will listen just how enamored he was with Mr. Hamilton’s craft and expertise in the courtroom. Mr. Hamilton was one of Mr. Gibbins’ most important mentors during the early stages of Mr. Gibbins’ legal career. This is where Mr. Gibbins’ love for criminal law was ignited and where he fell in love with the courtroom. Mr. Gibbins will tell you that he never saw Mr. Hamilton lose a case.
In his first couple of years of practice, Mr. Gibbins mainly focused on personal injury plaintiff matters. He gained extensive experience in the courtroom early on in litigating personal injury matters. Mr. Gibbins has extensive experience in handling catastrophic injuries, wrongful death, and survival actions. Mr. Gibbins has litigated cases involving 18-wheeler accidents, car accidents, dog bites, nursing home abuse, carbon monoxide poisoning, products liability, premises liability, oil field explosions, boating accidents, motorcycle accidents, birth injuries, medical malpractice, burn injuries, traumatic brain injuries, and many other types of personal injury cases. In the personal injury arena, Mr. Gibbins has been involved in all aspects of litigation.
Mr. Gibbins believes sincerely that just because an individual is arrested does not make that individual a bad person. Our justice system has a presumption that an individual is “innocent until proven guilty,” not “guilty until proven innocent,” and this is something that Mr. Gibbins strongly believes in. Mr. Gibbins understands that a criminal defense attorney is an individual’s last line of defense before their life, liberty, and freedom is taken away. This is something that Mr. Gibbins does not take lightly. As such, Mr. Gibbins is not afraid to step in to defend any kind of criminal case all the way through a jury trial and beyond. Jury trials excite Mr. Gibbins, as the courtroom is where he feels most at home.
Mr. Gibbins’ grandfather, Bob Gibbins, was a preeminent trial lawyer himself who was president of the American Association for Justice (formerly known as the Association of Trial Lawyers of America), director emeritus of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, and president of the Travis County Trial Lawyers Association. Amongst his numerous accolades, he received the first ever lifetime achievement award from the American Association for Justice and the Annual Warhorse Award from the Southern Trial Lawyers Association. Notable Warhorse Award winners from Texas were Scott Baldwin, Joe Jamail, Howard Nations, and Broadus Spivey (Bob Gibbins’ partner at the prominent law firm of Gibbins & Spivey). He represented Dallas socialite Priscilla Davis in a sensational civil trial against her former husband, oil tycoon Cullen Davis in a wrongful death suit in which she alleged Davis killed her boyfriend and 12-year old daughter in 1976. This was after Richard “Race Horse” Haynes got Davis acquitted following his criminal trial. In addition to this trial, Bob Gibbins tried hundreds of other cases to verdict. The University of Texas School of Law honored him with its institution of the “Bob Gibbins Endowed Presidential Scholarship in Law.” Mr. Gibbins is proud to come from such a long pedigree of trial lawyers and strives to honor the legacy that his grandfather left behind.
Admitted to practice in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas
Awards:
Who’s Who in American Law
