Lady Justice Cockerill was born in Weston-Super-Mare, but grew up near London. After attending the Lady Eleanor Holles School on a local authority scholarship, she studied law at St Anne’s College, Oxford, and was awarded the University’s prestigious Eldon Law Scholarship. Dame Sara was called to the Bar in 1990, and practised commercial law from Essex Court Chambers in 1991, with a particular emphasis on shipping, insurance and reinsurance, sale of goods, and international arbitration. She was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 2011, became a Deputy High Court Judge in 2015, and was appointed as a High Court Judge in 2017. Dame Sara was Judge In Charge Of The Commercial Court from 2020 to 2022. She has been a Lady Justice of Appeal since 2025, and is the current Deputy Head of Civil Justice, with responsibilities in relation to procedural and organisational aspects of the civil justice system.

Dame Sara is the author of ‘The Law & Practice Of Compelled Evidence’ and is a published biographer of two medieval queens, Edward I’s beloved wife Eleanor of Castile (Amberley, 2015), and Eleanor of Aquitaine (Amberley, 2019).