[2] Summers was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1827 and opened a law practice in Charleston.

He won re-election to the restructured 14th Congressional district, but was defeated for reelection in 1844 by Joseph Johnson.

The Virginia General Assembly, nonetheless elected Summers a circuit court judge for the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit (which covered several counties in the Kanawha Valley) and he served for six years, replacing slaveholder David McComas and being replaced by him after six years when he resigned and resumed his law practice for the final near decade of his life.

[5] In 1861, Kanawha County voters again elected Summers to represent them, at the Virginia Secession Convention of 1861.

[7] After President Lincoln called for troops following the Battle of Fort Sumter and the convention voted for secession, Summers resigned and was replaced by Andrew Parks.