Honorific-Prefix: | The Right Honourable |
Lady Justice Asplin | |
Honorific-Suffix: | DBE |
Office: | Lady Justice of Appeal |
Term Start: | 2017 |
Office2: | Justice of the High Court |
Term Start2: | 2012 |
Term End2: | 2017 |
Birth Date: | 16 September 1959 |
Birth Place: | United Kingdom |
Nationality: | British |
Alma Mater: | Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge |
Dame Sarah Jane Asplin, (born 16 September 1959) is a British judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales. She was granted the customary appointment as Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire on appointment as a High Court judge in 2012, becoming the third woman appointed to the Chancery Division.
Asplin attended Southampton Sixth Form College for Girls and read law at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, earning a BA in Law in 1982 (promoted to MA (Cantab) by seniority in 1986).[1] She went on to obtain the degree of BCL at St Edmund Hall, Oxford.
Asplin was called to the bar (Gray's Inn) in 1984 and was appointed a Queen's Counsel in 2002. She became the Head of Chambers at 3 Stone Buildings in 2009,[2] and was a deputy High Court Judge until her appointment to the High Court on 1 October 2012 as the Honourable Mrs Justice Asplin. She was the third woman to be assigned to the Chancery Division, after Mary Arden and Sonia Proudman.[3]
On 22 February 2013, she was appointed as Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.[4]
She was promoted to the Court of Appeal on 7 October 2017.[5]
In January 2019, Dame Sarah's appointment as Chair of the Church of England's Clergy Discipline Commission was announced. She simultaneously became the President of the Tribunals.[6]
In 1986, Asplin married Nicholas A. Sherwin, a solicitor with Clifford Chance, who had been a contemporary at Cambridge.[7]