Coming Ball Gibbs

COMING BALL GIBBS, JR., died on the morning of September 27, 2012. The family will receive friends in J. HENRY STUHR, INC., DOWNTOWN CHAPEL Sunday between 4:00 and 6:00 pm. A private graveside service will be held at Saint Philip's Episcopal Churchyard.

He was born on September 19, 1936, in Charleston, South Carolina, the son of Coming Ball Gibbs and Dorothy Seay Gibbs. He was a graduate of Saint Marks School, Southborough, Massachusetts, in 1954, Princeton University with a bachelors degree in Politics, class of 1958, and the University of South Carolina Law School in 1961, graduating Magna Cum Laude. He was law clerk to Judge Clement Haynsworth of the United States Court of Appeals. In 1963, he commenced practice with his father. He was a member of Gibson, Gibbs and Krawcheck and, thereafter, Gibbs, Gaillard, Rowell and Tannenbaum. In 1983 with Allan R. Holmes, he formed the firm of Gibbs and Holmes where he was special counsel at his death.

He was active and esteemed as a trial lawyer. He, with Ann Stirling and other lawyers, took on the representation of a convicted murderer under circumstances where it appeared obvious that he had received ineffective assistance of counsel. Even though the South Carolina Supreme Court on three different occasions rejected this view, and the United States Supreme Court twice, the United States Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the client was entitled to a new trial. He was active in Bar matters and served as President of the Charleston Young Lawyers Club and the Charleston County Bar Association. He was one of the lawyers who created the Neighborhood Legal Assistance program, a federally funded legal services program for indigents. He worked with many substance abuse issues, including those affecting lawyers, both as mentor and as lawyer.

He was awarded the Compleat Lawyer award of the South Carolina Law School Alumni Association and the first James Louis Petigru medal by the Charleston County Bar Association. He was also a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.

He is survived by his wife, Beverly Sue Gibbs, daughters: Georgianna (Janna) Gibbs Wynne, Susan Gibbs Durkin, Mary Carter Gibbs and Helen Gibbs Harkins; grandchildren: Thomas Robert Wynne, III, Asa Gibbs Wynne, Allen Daniel Harkins and Hadley Harkins; brother, William Jenkins Gibbs of Charleston, and sister, Elizabeth Lee Gibbs of Santa Rosa, California. At his death, he was a member of the Saint James Santee Episcopal Church in McClellanville.

He often said that a person's life could be measured by how his children, of whom he was a very proud father, turned out, and if he helped anyone along the way. His girls turned out fine, he did help others, and he died without regrets, feeling he had done what he could do.

He embodied the ancient command that the law be not a money making trade, but a profession.

Memorials may be made to Saint James Santee Episcopal Church, PO Box 123, McClellanville, SC 29458.