 He attended the Powellton Academy in Hancock County, Georgia from 1815 to 1817, the University of South Carolina in Columbia from 1817 to 1819, and graduated from the University of Georgia in Athens with an Bachelor of Arts in 1821.Nisbet then attended the Litchfield Law School in Connecticut.After receiving admission in 1824 to the state bar by a special act of the Georgia General Assembly as he was not yet twenty-one, Nisbet began the practice of law in Madison, Georgia.