Dame Eleanor 'Leo'[1][2][3] Veronica Elizabeth Sharpston (born 13 July 1955) is an English barrister who served as an Advocate General at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) from 2006 to 2020.
Having spent her childhood in Brazil and then her adolescence and half her practising life in continental Europe, she speaks a number of European languages.
She served as joint head of Hailsham Chambers in London, with her colleague Michael Pooles QC, from 2003 to 2006.
In 1991, she married David Lyon, a maritime historian and also a King's College alumnus whom she met through their mutual nautical interests; he died in 2000.
[12] She delivered three Hamlyn Lecturess in 2020, on-line, on the apt subject of The Great Experiment: Constructing a European Union under the Rule of Law from a Group of Diverse Sovereign States.