Search People Result | Academic Influence

Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines

Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.

Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.

We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.

To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).

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School

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Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Law,

#751

John Edwards

#10235

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Johnny Reid Edwards is an American lawyer and former politician who served as a U.S. senator from North Carolina. He was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2004 alongside John Kerry, losing to incumbents George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. He also was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and 2008.

#752

Ronald S. Sullivan Jr.

#26880

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Ronald S. Sullivan Jr. is a law professor at Harvard Law School. Sullivan graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Morehouse College in 1989 and received his Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1994. Prior to joining the Harvard Law School faculty, Sullivan served as the Director of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia.

#753

James J. White

#36311

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (90 years)

James Justesen White is an American legal scholar working as the Robert A. Sullivan Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. He has published the most widely recognized treatise on commercial law, Uniform Commercial Code with Robert S. Summers.

#754

Lisa Schultz Bressman

#44490

Overall Influence

Lisa Schultz Bressman is an American academic and lawyer working as the associate dean and David Daniels Allen Distinguished Chair in Law at the Vanderbilt University Law School. She specializes in administrative law and constitutional theory.

#755

James Sokolove

#27961

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

James G. Sokolove is an American attorney known for advertising legal services on television. Though he was the largest legal advertiser in the United States in 2007, Sokolove's firm acts only as a lead generator and does not currently try cases.

#756

Peter Junger

#25915

Overall Influence

1933 - 2006 (73 years)

Peter D. Junger was a computer law professor and Internet activist, most famous for having fought against the U.S. government's regulations of and export controls on encryption software. The case, Junger v. Daley , held that computer source code is protected by the First Amendment. The US government prohibited publication of encryption software on the Internet, arguing that encryption software was a "munition" subject to export controls. Junger filed suit in 1996 challenging the regulations.

#757

Ian Roderick Macneil

#36223

Overall Influence

1929 - 2010 (81 years)

Ian Roderick Macneil of Barra , The Macneil of Barra, Chief of Clan MacNeil, also known as Clan Niall and 26th of Barra, also Baron of Barra Early life and education Macneil was the son of Robert Lister Macneil. He was educated at the University of Vermont, USA and Harvard where he studied contracts under the noted theorist Lon L. Fuller. He was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He served as an infantry Lieutenant in the US Army from 1951 to 1953 and remained in the reserve until 1969, when he was honourably discharged with the rank of Major. He married Nancy and they h...

#758

Steven Shavell

#26975

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Steven Shavell is an economist who is currently Samuel R. Rosenthal Professor of Law and Economics at Harvard Law School. Shavell is the founder and director of the School's John M. Olin Center for Law, Economics, and Business.

#759

Andrew von Hirsch

#24423

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (90 years)

Andreas von Hirsch, before 2008 published under his anglicised name Andrew von Hirsch, is a legal philosopher and penal theorist and the founding Director of the centre for Penal Theory and Penal Ethics at the Institute of Criminology, Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge. He also has been Honorary Professor of Penal Theory and Penal Law at Cambridge University, and an Honorary Fellow of Wolfson College.

#760

Mark D. West

#35492

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

Mark D. West is an American legal scholar, social scientist, and academic serving as the Nippon Life Professor of Law at the University of Michigan since 2003 and the David A. Breach Dean of Law from 2013 to 2023. He is the 17th dean of the University of Michigan Law School.

#761

Thomas M. Franck

#43844

Overall Influence

1931 - 2009 (78 years)

Thomas Martin Franck was a lawyer, law professor, and expert on international law. Franck was the Murry and Ida Becker Professor of Law at New York University and advised many nations on legal matters, even helping some to write their constitutions.

#762

Pieter van Vollenhoven

Pieter van Vollenhoven

#10735

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (85 years)

Pieter van Vollenhoven Jr. is the husband of Princess Margriet of the Netherlands and a member, by marriage, of the Dutch royal house. Early life and career Van Vollenhoven was born in Schiedam, he is the second son of Pieter van Vollenhoven Sr. and his wife Jacoba Gijsbertha Stuylingh de Lange . The van Vollenhoven family and the Stuylingh de Lange family belong to the Dutch patriciate.

#763

Kenneth P. Thompson

Kenneth P. Thompson

#21270

Overall Influence

1966 - 2016 (50 years)

Kenneth P. Thompson was an American lawyer who served as the District Attorney of Kings County, New York, from 2014 until his death from cancer on October 9, 2016. Early life and education Kenneth Thompson's parents, William and Clara Thompson, divorced in his early childhood. William was a city highway worker. In 1973, Clara became one of the first patrolwomen in the New York City Police Department.

#764

Henry T. King

#24117

Overall Influence

1919 - 2009 (90 years)

Henry T. King Jr. was an attorney who served as a U.S. Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946-47. Late in his career, he became a law professor and an activist, writer, and lecturer working on international law and war crimes; David M. Crane has described King as "the George Washington of modern international law".

#765

Richard Thompson Ford

#21106

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Richard Thompson Ford is the George E. Osborne Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. His scholarship includes work on critical race theory, local government law, housing segregation, and employment discrimination. He has served as a housing commissioner for the San Francisco Housing Commission, and continues to work with local governments on issues of affordable housing and segregation. His book Rights Gone Wrong: How Law Corrupts the Struggle for Equality was chosen as one of the New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2011. His 2021 book on dress codes explores the relationship between fashi...

#766

Theodore J. St. Antoine

#36260

Overall Influence

1929 - Present (95 years)

Theodore J. St. Antoine is an American lawyer and legal scholar. He has served on the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School since 1965 and is currently the James E. and Sarah A. Degan Professor Emeritus of Law at the school. St. Antoine served as dean of the Law School from 1971 to 1978.

#767

Gustáv Husák

#10487

Overall Influence

1913 - 1991 (78 years)

Gustáv Husák was a Czechoslovak politician who served as the long-time First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from 1969 to 1987 and the President of Czechoslovakia from 1975 to 1989.

#768

Leo Blair

#22231

Overall Influence

1923 - 2012 (89 years)

Leo Charles Lynton Blair was a British barrister and law lecturer at Durham University. He was the author of the book The Commonwealth Public Service. He was the father of Sir Tony Blair, the former prime minister of the United Kingdom, and of Sir William Blair, a High Court judge.

#769

Bob Hepple

#18361

Overall Influence

1934 - 2015 (81 years)

Sir Bob Alexander Hepple OLG was a South African-born legal academic and leader in the fields of labour law, equality and human rights. Early life and education He was the son of Alexander Hepple , who was Leader of the South African Labour Party, and Josephine Zwarenstein a Dutch Jew. He was educated at Jeppe High School for Boys , the University of the Witwatersrand , and the University of Cambridge .

#770

Christof Heyns

#18336

Overall Influence

1959 - 2021 (62 years)

Christoffel Hendrik Heyns was a Professor of Human Rights Law, Director of the Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa at the University of Pretoria and a South African member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee. He served as United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions from 2010 to 2016. Heyns was a visiting professor at American University Washington College of Law's Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law .

#771

Eric Goldman

#22555

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

Eric Goldman is a law professor at Santa Clara University School of Law. He also co-directs the law school's High Tech Law Institute and co-supervises the law school's Privacy Law Certificate. Career overview Goldman is a leading expert in the fields of Internet Law and Intellectual Property. He was part of the first wave of teaching Internet Law courses in law schools, having taught his first course in 1995–96. He has testified before Congress on the Consumer Review Fairness Act, Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act , and Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act . In a well-...

#772

Stephen Schulhofer

#34717

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Stephen Joseph Schulhofer is the Robert B. McKay Professor of Law at New York University School of Law. His academic focus is criminal justice. Background Schulhofer completed his B.A. summa cum laude in 1964 at Princeton University, and his J.D. summa cum laude in 1967 at Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He then clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black for two years. He practiced for three years with the law firm Coudert Frères in Paris, from 1969 to 1972.

#773

Aaron Twerski

#30831

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

Aaron D. Twerski is an American lawyer and professor. He is the Irwin and Jill Cohen Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School, as well as a former Dean and professor of tort law at Hofstra University School of Law.

#774

Michael Ian Shamos

#9547

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Michael Ian Shamos is an American mathematician, attorney, book author, journal editor, consultant and company director. He is the author of Computational Geometry , which was for many years the standard textbook in computational geometry, and is known for the Shamos–Hoey sweep line algorithm for line segment intersection detection and for the rotating calipers technique for finding the width and diameter of a geometric figure. His publications also include works on electronic voting, the game of billiards, and intellectual property law in the digital age.

#775

Paul Campos

#16570

Overall Influence

Paul F. Campos is a law professor, author and blogger on the faculty of the University of Colorado Boulder in Boulder. Campos received his A.B. and M.A. in English from the University of Michigan and in 1989 his J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School. Campos worked at the law firm Latham & Watkins in Chicago from 1989-1990 and became an associate professor at the University of Colorado in 1990, where he teaches classes on property, punishment theory, jurisprudence and legal interpretation.

#776

Teori Zavascki

#23068

Overall Influence

1948 - 2017 (69 years)

Teori Albino Zavascki was a Brazilian judge who served as a Minister of the Superior Court of Justice from 8 May 2003 until 29 November 2012, appointed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and as a Minister of the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil from 29 November 2012 until his death on 19 January 2017, having been appointed to the position by President Dilma Rousseff. At the time of his death he was the justice in charge of the trials resulting from Operation Car Wash.

#777

Myres S. McDougal

#42398

Overall Influence

1906 - 1998 (92 years)

Myres Smith McDougal was a scholar of international law and Sterling Professor of International Law at the Yale Law School, where he taught for fifty years. He also taught at New York Law School. He was an influential proponent of a "policy-oriented" approach to international law that became associated with Yale Law School.

#778

Armin von Bogdandy

#25205

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Armin von Bogdandy is a German legal scholar. He is director of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg and Professor for Public Law, European Law, and International and Economic Law at the Goethe University Frankfurt. Armin von Bogdandy's research centers on the structural changes affecting public law, be they theoretical, doctrinal, or practical.

#779

Antonio La Viña

#33240

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Antonio Gabriel "Tony" Maestrado La Viña is a Filipino lawyer, educator, and environmental policy expert. A former undersecretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources , executive director of the Manila Observatory, and dean of the Ateneo School of Government, he currently teaches law, governance, and philosophy in the Ateneo de Manila University, University of the Philippines, University of Santo Tomas, De La Salle University, Xavier University, San Beda University, Polytechnic University of the Philippines, Lyceum of the Philippines University, Pamantasang ng Lungsod ng May...

#780

Lama Abu-Odeh

#42865

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Lama Abu-Odeh is a Palestinian-American professor and author who teaches at the Georgetown University Law Center. She has written on Islamic law, feminism, and family law. Early life and education Abu-Odeh was born in Amman, Jordan. She is the daughter of Adnan Abu-Odeh, a former senator in the Jordanian House of Parliament and ambassador. She earned her LL.B. from the University of Jordan, her LL.M. from the University of Bristol, England, her MA from the University of York, England] and her S.J.D. from Harvard University. She has taught at Stanford Law School and worked for the World Bank'...

#781

Paul M. Lisnek

#37366

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Paul M. Lisnek was born on June 19, 1958, and is an attorney, legal consultant, political analyst, public speaker, television and radio talk show host, and interviewer, and author. He has consulted on and analyzed numerous nationally recognized legal cases. He currently resides in Chicago.

#782

David Kretzmer

#24234

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

David Kretzmer is an Israeli expert in international and constitutional law. He is professor emeritus of international law of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and professor of law at the Transitional Justice Institute at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland. He has been a member of international and Israeli Human Rights organizations, including the UN Human Rights Committee under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, serving as its vice-chairperson in 2001 and 2002. He established the Centre for Human Rights at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and was a found...

#783

Daniel J. Solove

#24321

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (52 years)

Daniel J. Solove is the Eugene L. and Barbara A. Bernard Professor of Intellectual Property and Technology Law at the George Washington University Law School. He is well known for his academic work on privacy and for popular books on how privacy relates with information technology.

#784

David Kershaw

#41564

Overall Influence

David Kershaw is a Professor of Law at the London School of Economics and the current Dean of LSE Law School. His research is focused on company law. As well as the author of a leading company law textbook, Kershaw's expertise focuses on accounting principles for companies, for which his work on post-Enron regulation received the Modern Law Review Wedderburn Prize, directors' duties, takeovers and workplace participation.

#785

Kai Ambos

#46267

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Kai Ambos is a German jurist and judge. He who holds the teaching chair at the University of Göttingen in criminal law, criminal procedure, comparative law and international criminal law. He served as a judge at the District Court for Lower Saxony between 2006 and 2017. In February 2017 he was appointed to serve as a judge on the Special Tribunal for Kosovo at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. He has authored and edited numerous publications on criminal law and procedure in Germany and internationally.

#786

Kevin K. Washburn

Kevin K. Washburn

#29263

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (57 years)

Kevin K. Washburn is an American law professor, former dean of the University of New Mexico School of Law, and current Dean of the University of Iowa College of Law. He served in the administration of President Barack Obama as Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs at the U.S. Department of the Interior from 2012 to 2016. Washburn has also been a federal prosecutor, a trial attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, and the General Counsel of the National Indian Gaming Commission. Washburn is a member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, a federally-recognized Native American tribe.

#787

Laura E. Gómez

#23833

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Laura E. Gómez is a professor at the School of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles where she also holds appointments in Sociology and the Department of Chicana & Chicano Studies and Central American Studies.

#788

Gad Tedeschi

#58366

Overall Influence

1907 - 1992 (85 years)

Gad Tedeschi was an Israeli jurist. Early life Tedeschi was born in the town of Rovigo in north-eastern Italy in 1907. He emigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine in 1939, entering the country initially with a tourist visa.

#789

David Getches

#40379

Overall Influence

1942 - 2011 (69 years)

David Harding Getches was dean and Raphael J. Moses Professor of Natural Resources Law at the University of Colorado Law School in Boulder, Colorado. He taught and wrote on water law, public land law, environmental law, and Indian law.

#790

Stephan Kuttner

#29448

Overall Influence

1907 - 1996 (89 years)

Stephan George Kuttner , an expert in Canon Law, was recognized as a leader in the discovery, interpretation and analysis of important texts and manuscripts that are key to understanding the evolution of legal systems from Roman law to modern constitutional law.

#791

Boudewijn Sirks

#17749

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Sirks leads here. For places and people named Sirk, see Sirk Adriaan Johan Boudewijn Sirks , known as Boudewijn Sirks and as A. J. B. Sirks, is a Dutch academic lawyer and legal historian specializing in Roman law. He was Regius Professor of Civil Law at the University of Oxford from 2006 to 2014.

#792

Chai Feldblum

#20766

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Chai Rachel Feldblum is an American author and activist for disability and LGBT rights. A former law professor at Georgetown University Law Center, she served as Commissioner at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She was nominated to the position on the EEOC by president Barack Obama in 2009. In April 2010, she received a recess appointment to the EEOC, and in December 2010 she was confirmed to serve on the EEOC by the United States Senate. The Senate confirmed her in December 2013 for a second term on the Commission which expired in July 2018.

#793

Néstor Kirchner

#9251

Overall Influence

1950 - 2010 (60 years)

Néstor Carlos Kirchner Ostoić was an Argentine lawyer and politician who served as the President of Argentina from 2003 to 2007. A member of the Justicialist Party, he previously served as Governor of Santa Cruz Province from 1991 to 2003, and mayor of Río Gallegos from 1987 to 1991. He later served as the first ever First Gentleman of Argentina during the first tenure of his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. By the time he died in October 2010, he was First Gentlemen from 2007, President of the Justicialist Party and National Deputy from 2009, and Secretary General of UNASUR from May 2010.

#794

Iain Scobbie

#27565

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Iain Girvan Mann Scobbie is a British scholar of international law who is the Chair of International Law at the University of Manchester, where he lectures on public international law, international courts and tribunals, and the use of force. He was previously the Sir Joseph Hotung Research Professor in Law, Human Rights and Peace Building in the Middle East at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, where he remains affiliated.

#795

Kate O'Regan

#33910

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Catherine "Kate" O'Regan is a former judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. From 2013 to 2014 she was a commissioner of the Khayelitsha Commission and is now the inaugural director of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at the University of Oxford.

#796

Eugene V. Rostow

Eugene V. Rostow

#23700

Overall Influence

1913 - 2002 (89 years)

Eugene Victor Debs Rostow was an American legal scholar and public servant. He was Dean of Yale Law School and served as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs under President Lyndon B. Johnson. In the 1970s Rostow was a leader of the movement against détente with Russia and in 1981, President Ronald Reagan appointed him director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.

#797

James Fleissner

#46253

Overall Influence

James P. Fleissner is an American attorney and a Professor of Law at Mercer University School of Law in Macon, Georgia. While at Mercer, Fleissner has remained Special Assistant United States Attorney and Deputy Special Counsel. As Deputy Special Counsel, Fleissner was lead counsel in litigation regarding motions filed by journalists to quash subpoenas and contempt proceedings in the CIA leak grand jury investigation.

#798

Imani Perry

#13417

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (52 years)

Imani Perry is an American interdisciplinary scholar of race, law, literature, and African-American culture. She is currently the Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University and a columnist for The Atlantic. Perry won the 2022 National Book Award for Nonfiction for South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation. In October 2023, she was named a MacArthur Fellow.

#799

Merrick Garland

#19091

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Merrick Brian Garland is an American lawyer and jurist who is the 86th and current United States attorney general. He previously served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1997 to 2021. In 2016, President Barack Obama nominated Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the Republican-led U.S. Senate effectively blocked Garland's appointment.

#800

Larry Gostin

#32979

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Lawrence Oglethorpe Gostin is an American law professor who specializes in public health law. He was a Fulbright Fellow and is best known as the author of the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act and as a significant contributor to journals on medicine and law.

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