Dame Sara Elizabeth Cockerill, DBE (born 7 November 1968) is a British High Court judge.

Early life and education

Cockerill was born in Weston-super-Mare, England and was educated at Lady Eleanor Holles School, funded by the Assisted Places Scheme. She studied at

St Anne's College, Oxford St Anne's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It was founded in 1879 and gained full college status in 1959. Originally a women's college, it has admitted men since 1979. It has some 450 undergraduate and 200 ...

and completed a first-class BA in jurisprudence in 1989. She was an Eldon Scholar in 1990.

Career

In 1990, Cockerill was

called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. (The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn.) Lincoln ...

, and practised at the bar from Essex Court Chambers and Four Essex Court, specialising in commercial law and compelled evidence. She took silk in 2011 and served as a deputy High Court judge from 2016 to 2017. Having been from 2011 a contributor to the ''White Book'', she has been a member of its senior editorial board since 2020. She wrote ''Compelled Evidence in Civil Proceedings'' in 2011. In addition to legal publications, Cockerill has written books on medieval history, including ''Eleanor of Castile: the Shadow Queen'' in 2014 and ''Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen of France and England, Mother of Empires'' in 2019.

High Court appointment

On 1 November 2017, she was appointed a judge of the High Court and assigned to the Queen's Bench Division. She received the customary

dame ''Dame'' is an honorific title and the feminine form of address for the honour of damehood in many Christian chivalric orders, as well as the Orders, decorations, and medals of the United Kingdom, British honours system and those of several oth ...

hood in 2017. She is authorised to hear cases on the Financial List, at the Competition Appeal Tribunal and the Administrative Court, and does general Queen's Bench work. Since 2020, she has been Judge in Charge of the

Commercial Court Commercial Court is a type of specialized court on commercial law. List of existing commercial courts * Commercial Court (Belgium) * Commercial Court (England and Wales) * Commercial Court (Victoria) The Commercial Court is a sub-division o ...

. During the Venezuelan presidential crisis, Cockerill ruled that that Venezuela's gold reserves deposited in the

Bank of England The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the English Government's banker, and still one of the bankers for the Government of ...

should remain frozen.

Personal life

In 1997, she married Nigel Eaton.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cockerill, Sara Living people 1968 births Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire Alumni of St Anne's College, Oxford Members of Lincoln's Inn People educated at Lady Eleanor Holles School Queen's Bench Division judges 21st-century English judges 21st-century British women lawyers 21st-century British women judges