He served as the first Attorney General of Hong Kong and as a Puisne Judge in Ceylon .
Sterling was one of the first three lawyers to be admitted to practice before the Hong Kong courts.
On 2 October 1844, he prosecuted the first criminal case before the Supreme Court of Hong Kong, which was a case of abduction where a husband and wife had induced two young women to enter a boat and then sold them for $90 each in Canton.
[3] One case he decided in 1852, Tromson v Dent involving the shipment of opium from Calcutta to Hong Kong was upheld by the Privy Council in 1853.
[5] In 1860, he was appointed acting Chief Justice of Ceylon on the death of Sir Carpenter Crowe[6] in 1861 when departing on leave from Ceylon, Allens Indian Mail described Sterling as follows: "If not a brilliant lawyer, he was at least painstaking and a respected judge, irreplaceable in all relations of life.