[2][1] Gibbons moved to Mobile, Alabama in 1833,[2] where he taught at Spring Hill College while continuing to study law.
[1] He was admitted to the bar in 1834 and entered law practice the following spring, in Claiborne, Alabama, in partnership with James Dellet.
[1][2] Gibbons traveled to Europe around 1845, remaining there for two years and studying civil law in France.
He was elected to a second term in 1852, but in December of that year was appointed by Governor Henry W. Collier to a seat on the Alabama Supreme Court vacated by the resignation of Edmund S.
In 1861, he represented Monroe County as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1861, which passed the ordinances of secession.