The Most Influential People Across History
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).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.
List of the most influential people in Law,
#851
Jonathan Sumption, Lord Sumption
#17077
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Jonathan Philip Chadwick Sumption, Lord Sumption, , KC , is a British author, medieval historian and former senior judge who sat on the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom between 2012 and 2018. Sumption was sworn in as a Justice of the Supreme Court on 11 January 2012, succeeding Lawrence Collins, Baron Collins of Mapesbury. Exceptionally, he was appointed to the Supreme Court directly from the practising bar, without having been a full-time judge. He retired from the Supreme Court on 9 December 2018 upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 70.
Go to Profile#852
Valentinas Mikelėnas
#60862
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Valentinas Mikelėnas is a Lithuanian lawyer, former Justice of the Supreme Court of Lithuania, and one of the most prominent Lithuanian civil law scholars at Vilnius University. Mikelėnas was the Head of the Drafting Group of the Civil Code of Lithuania in 1991. He is also one of the Founding Members of the European Law Institute, a non-profit organisation that conducts research, makes recommendations and provides practical guidance in the field of European legal development with a goal of enhancing the European legal integration.
Go to Profile#853
Curtis Doebbler
#35834
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Curtis F.J. Doebbler is an international human rights lawyer who since 1988 has been representing individuals before international human rights bodies in Africa, Europe, the Americas and before United Nations bodies. He is also an American lawyer authorized to practice before the courts of the District of Columbia. and in the State of Texas and several federal courts in the United States, including the Supreme Court of the United States.
Go to Profile#854
Samuel R. Gross
#31973
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Samuel Raymond Gross is an American lawyer and the Thomas and Mabel Long Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. Gross is best known for his work in false convictions and exonerations, notably the Larry Griffin death penalty case.
Go to Profile#855
Johannes Masing
#36648
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Johannes Masing is a German jurisprudent, public law and former judge of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany. Career Between 1979 and 1986, Masing studied law and philosophy at the University of Freiburg as well as Piano at the Freiburg Conservatory of Music and the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart .
Go to Profile#856
Symeon C. Symeonides
#31418
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Symeon C. Symeonides , Alex L. Parks Distinguished Professor of Law, Dean Emeritus, is an international law scholar and professor at the Willamette University College of Law in Salem, Oregon, United States. The Cyprus-born legal scholar is also President of the American Society of Comparative Law and former dean at Willamette. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he previously taught at Louisiana State University's Paul M. Hebert Law Center.
Go to Profile#857
Martha Albertson Fineman
#36571
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Martha Albertson Fineman is an American jurist, legal theorist and political philosopher. She is Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law at Emory University School of Law. Fineman was previously the first holder of the Dorothea S. Clarke Professor of Feminist Jurisprudence at Cornell Law School. She held the Maurice T. Moore Professorship at Columbia Law School.
Go to Profile#858
William John Cox
#15736
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
William John "Billy Jack" Cox is an American public interest lawyer and author. Biography Early career Employed in 1962 by the El Cajon Police Department, he attended the nearby San Diego Police Department Academy. In 1968, Cox transferred to the Los Angeles Police Department where he graduated from the Police Academy. He received an associate degree in Police Administration from Rio Hondo College.
Go to Profile#859
Jeffrey P. Minear
#23323
Overall Influence
Jeffrey P. Minear was the counselor to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. Minear began work at the Supreme Court on September 11, 2006. Previously he had been senior litigation counsel and assistant to the Solicitor General, Department of Justice .
Go to Profile#860
Daniel Meltzer
#36512
Overall Influence
1951 - 2015 (64 years)
Daniel Julius Meltzer was an American lawyer and law professor who taught at Harvard Law School. He worked in the Obama Administration as Principal Deputy Counsel from January 2009 through June 1, 2010.
Go to Profile#861
Patrick Leahy
#15395
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
Patrick Joseph Leahy, is an American politician and attorney who represented Vermont in the United States Senate from 1975 to 2023. A member of the Democratic Party, he also was the president pro tempore of the United States Senate from 2012 to 2015 and from 2021 to 2023. During his tenure he chaired the Senate Appropriations Committee, the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Agriculture Committee. At 48 years, Leahy is the third-longest-serving U.S. senator in history, and is the longest-serving member of the United States Congress to serve solely as a senator.
Go to Profile#862
Johann Kriegler
#19564
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (92 years)
Johann Christiaan Kriegler is a retired justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. Early life Born in Pretoria, he matriculated at King Edward VII School in Johannesburg in 1949. He then attended the South African Military Academy for two years. He studied law at the University of Pretoria and the University of South Africa.
Go to Profile#863
John J. Donohue III
#16320
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
John J. Donohue III is an American law professor, economist, and the C. Wendell and Edith M. Carlsmith Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. He is widely known for his writings on effect of legalized abortion on crime and for his criticism of John Lott's book More Guns, Less Crime.
Go to Profile#864
Douglas Kmiec
#22747
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Douglas William Kmiec is an American legal scholar, author, and former U.S. ambassador. He is the Caruso Family Chair and Professor of Constitutional Law at Pepperdine University School of Law. Kmiec came to prominence during the 2008 United States presidential election when, although a Republican, he endorsed Democrat Barack Obama. In July 2009, he was nominated by President Obama to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Malta. He was confirmed by the Senate and served for close to two years as ambassador to Malta. He resigned his post effective May 31, 2011.
Go to Profile#865
George Annas
#10837
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
George J. Annas is the William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor and Director of the Center for Health Law, Ethics & Human Rights at the Boston University School of Public Health, School of Medicine, and School of Law.
Go to Profile#866
Gerald N. Rosenberg
#30203
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Gerald N. Rosenberg is an American political science and law professor at the University of Chicago, and the author of the 1991 book The Hollow Hope. Education and career A Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude graduate of Dartmouth College, he holds an M.A. degree in Politics and Philosophy from Oxford University, a J.D. degree from the University of Michigan Law School and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale University. He is also a member of the Washington, D.C. bar.
Go to Profile#867
Kiyoko Okabe
#24069
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
served as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Japan from 2010 to 2019. She was born on March 20, 1949. She attended Keio University and completed the master’s program at the university’s law school in 1974. In 1974, she was admitted as a legal apprentice, and would not begin her judicial career until 1976. From 1976-1985, Okabe worked as an Assistant Judge for various court systems including the Sapporo District Court. She thereafter worked as a judge for other district courts until entering private practice in 1993. On April 12, 2010, Okabe was appointed as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Japan.
Go to Profile#868
Emily C. Hewitt
#21938
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Emily Clark Hewitt is a former judge and chief judge of the United States Court of Federal Claims. Early life and education Hewitt was born in Baltimore, Maryland. She graduated from the Roland Park Country School in Baltimore and in 1966, she earned a B.A. from Cornell University. She received an Master of Philosophy degree from the Union Theological Seminary in New York City in studies focusing on religion and education, and was ordained to the diaconate of the Episcopal Church in 1972.
Go to Profile#869
Catherine Sharkey
#45907
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (54 years)
Catherine Moira Sharkey is a professor of law at the New York University School of Law. Biography In 1992, Sharkey graduated with a bachelor's degree in Economics from Yale University, summa cum laude, where she was tapped for Skull and Bones. She went on to the University of Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, graduating in 1994 with a master of science in Economics for Development, with honors and with distinction. Catherine then attended Yale Law School, where she was an Executive Editor of the Yale Law Journal, graduating with a J.D. in 1997.
Go to Profile#870
Jeffery Deaver
#8334
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Jeffery Deaver is an American mystery and crime writer. He has a bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Missouri and a J.D. degree from Fordham University and originally started working as a journalist. He later practiced law before embarking on a career as a novelist. He has been awarded the Steel Dagger and Short Story Dagger from the British Crime Writers' Association and the Nero Wolfe Award, and he is a three-time recipient of the Ellery Queen Reader's Award for Best Short Story of the Year and a winner of the British Thumping Good Read Award. His novels have appeared on be...
Go to Profile#871
John W. Reed
#35906
Overall Influence
1918 - 2018 (100 years)
John W. Reed was an American law professor and Thomas M. Cooley Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Michigan Law School. Biography Reed received law degrees from Cornell Law School and Columbia Law School . Reed joined the Michigan Law faculty in 1949. Reed taught civil procedure, evidence, trial advocacy, and other courses at Michigan Law, and won many teaching awards.
Go to Profile#872
Evelyn Haas
#50029
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Evelyn Haas, born Evelyn Traeger is a German former First Senate Constitutional Court judge and current Honorary Professor of Law. She was the first woman to be elected to the Constitutional Court in Germany.
Go to Profile#873
Michael Gottesman
#59316
Overall Influence
Michael H. Gottesman is a lawyer and law professor at Georgetown University Law Center, specializing in the fields of labor law, constitutional law, and civil rights. He practiced and became a partner with the Washington, D.C., firm Bredhoff and Kaiser from 1961-1988.
Go to Profile#874
Nora Demleitner
#48710
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Nora V. Demleitner is a German-American jurist and academic administrator. She is the president of St. John's College - Annapolis . Prior to this, she served as the dean of Washington and Lee University School of Law from 2012-2015 and dean of Hofstra University School of Law from 2007-2012.
Go to Profile#875
Thierry Mugler
#1241
Overall Influence
1945 - 2022 (77 years)
Manfred Thierry Mugler was a French fashion designer, creative director and creative adviser of Mugler. In the 1970s, Mugler launched his eponymous fashion house; and quickly rose to prominence in the following decades for his avant-garde, architectural, hyperfeminine and theatrical approach to haute couture. He was one of the first designers to champion diversity in his runway shows, which often tackled racism and ageism, and incorporated non-traditional models such as drag queens, porn stars, and transgender women. In 2002, he retired from the brand, and returned in 2013 as the creative adv...
Go to Profile#876
Géraud de Geouffre de La Pradelle
#31775
Overall Influence
1935 - 2022 (87 years)
Géraud de Geouffre de La Pradelle de Leyrat was an international jurist and a professor of French law. Biography Family He is the son of lawyer Raymond de Geouffre de la Pradelle, the grandson of Albert de Geouffre de La Pradelle and the uncle of Anne-Véronique Herter. He has two children with Claire Bardon Florence and Laure .
Go to Profile#877
Juan Andrés Ramírez
#39010
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Juan Andrés Ramírez is a Uruguayan lawyer, and a Senator of the National Party. Background Juan Andrés Ramírez was born in Montevideo, Uruguay on 11 October 1947. He studied law at University of the Republic, becoming a well-known civil lawyer, and soon after became a member of the National Party. In the 1989 general elections, he was elected as a Senator of the Herrerismo faction of the National Party.
Go to Profile#878
Gary S. Lawson
#44944
Overall Influence
Gary S. Lawson is an American lawyer whose focus is in administrative law, constitutional law, legal history, and jurisprudence. He was a law clerk for Judge Antonin Scalia of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia from 1985–86 and clerked for Scalia again during his 1986-87 term on the United States Supreme Court. He is currently the Philip S. Beck Professor of Law at Boston University School of Law. He previously taught at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. He is the secretary of the board of directors of the Federalist Society. With Steven G. Calab...
Go to Profile#879
Hanina Ben-Menahem
#57416
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Hanina Ben-Menahem is an Oxford trained scholar at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who specializes in Jewish law . Ben-Menahem is critical of the legal positivist approach that dominates Mishpat Ivri, a comparative legal approach to Halakha. He was also a renowned chancellor of law in which he made several advancement in jurisprudence.
Go to Profile#880
David D. Friedman
#12686
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
David Director Friedman is an American economist, physicist, legal scholar, author, and anarcho-capitalist theorist. Although he studied chemistry and physics and not law or economics, he is known for his textbook writings on microeconomics and the libertarian theory of anarcho-capitalism, which is the subject of his most popular book, The Machinery of Freedom. Described by Walter Block as a "free-market anarchist" theorist, Friedman has also authored several other books and articles, including Price Theory: An Intermediate Text , Law's Order: What Economics Has to Do with Law and Why It Matt...
Go to Profile#881
Ronald J. Rychlak
#30652
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Ronald J. Rychlak is an American lawyer, jurist, author and political commentator. He is a Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law and is holder of the Jamie L. Whitten Chair in Law and Government. He is known for his published works, career as an attorney, and writings on the role of Pope Pius XII in World War II.
Go to Profile#882
Vincent Blasi
#37846
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Vincent Blasi, born January 28, 1943, is an American legal scholar. He is the Corliss Lamont Professor of Civil Liberties at Columbia Law School. Biography Blasi graduated from Northwestern University in 1964, received his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School in 1967, and commenced his law teaching career the following year. He joined the faculty of Columbia Law School in 1983.
Go to Profile#883
José Zalaquett
#12978
Overall Influence
1942 - 2020 (78 years)
José "Pepe" Zalaquett Daher was a Chilean lawyer, renowned for his work in the defence of human rights during the de facto regime that governed Chile under General Augusto Pinochet from 1973 to 1990.
Go to Profile#884
M. Gregg Bloche
#42785
Overall Influence
Maxwell Gregg Bloche is an American legal scholar and psychiatrist. He is the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Health Law, Policy at Georgetown University Law Center. Biography Bloche received his B.A. from Columbia University, where he was editor-in-chief of Columbia Daily Spectator, J.D. from Yale Law School, and M.D. from Yale School of Medicine. He completed a residency in psychiatry at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York.
Go to Profile#885
Dieter Medicus
#26238
Overall Influence
1929 - 2015 (86 years)
Dieter Medicus was a German jurist. Until his retirement in 1994 he was professor of Private Law and history of Ancient law at the University of Munich. Life Medicus was born 1929 in Berlin. His father was a chemist. He studied law at the Humboldt University Berlin, University of Würzburg and University of Münster. In 1954 he passed the first state exam and in 1957 the second state exam dissertation Zur Geschichte des Senatus consultum Velleianum—‘On the History of the Senatus Consultum Velleianium’ in 1956Id quod interest. Studien zum römischen Recht des Schadensersatzes—‘Id quod interest. ...
Go to Profile#886
Filip Reyntjens
#15705
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Filip Reyntjens is professor emeritus at University of Antwerp. His academic training is in constitutional law, but he later pivoted towards the study of politics especially of the Great Lakes region of Africa.
Go to Profile#887
A. N. Yiannopoulos
#61204
Overall Influence
1928 - 2017 (89 years)
Athanassios Nicholas "Thanassi" Yiannopoulos was a professor at Tulane University Law School, expert on civil law and comparative law, and founder of the Civil Law Commentaries. He acquired his law degree at the Law School of the Aristotle University and continued his graduate studies at the University of Chicago Law School , the University of California, Berkeley
Go to Profile#888
Konrad Hesse
#46346
Overall Influence
1919 - 2005 (86 years)
Konrad Hesse was a German jurist and, from 1975 to 1987, a justice of the Federal Constitutional Court. Hesse was born in Königsberg, East Prussia. He entered the scientific field after his education in law. He obtained his doctorate degree in 1950, and was habilited in 1955 at the University of Göttingen. His habilitation covered state, administration and canon laws. He received his first ordinary professorship in 1965 at the University of Freiburg. Additionally, he worked from 1961 to 1975 as a judge at the Supreme Administrative Court in Baden-Württemberg.
Go to Profile#889
Gillian Lester
#47805
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
Gillian L. L. Lester is the 15th Dean of Columbia Law School. She joined Columbia Law School on January 1, 2015, as Dean and Lucy G. Moses Professor of Law. Previously, Lester was acting dean of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law where she had been a professor since 2006. Before that, she was a full professor at the School of Law of the University of California, Los Angeles.
Go to Profile#890
Siegfried H. Elsing
#54208
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Siegfried H. Elsing is a German business lawyer. He is senior partner Germany of the international law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP and honorary professor at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf.
Go to Profile#891
Ada Deer
#13001
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (89 years)
Ada Elizabeth Deer was an American scholar and civil servant who was a member of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin and a Native American advocate. As an activist she opposed the federal termination of tribes from the 1950s. During the Clinton administration, Deer served as Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs.
Go to Profile#892
Robert Brauneis
#51963
Overall Influence
Robert F. Brauneis is a professor of intellectual property law at the George Washington University Law School. Biography Brauneis received a B.A. from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1982, and a J.D., magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1989. He then served as a law clerk to Judge Stephen Breyer of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and then to Justice David Souter of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1992 to 1993. Between his clerkships, he worked as an Assistant Corporation Counsel for the city of Chicago. In August 1994, he joined the facu...
Go to Profile#893
Yuan Hongbing
#34277
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Yuan Hongbing is a Chinese-Australian jurist, novelist, and Chinese dissident. Biography Born in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, Yuan's parents worked at the Inner Mongolia Daily. During the Cultural Revolution, Yuan was sent to the countryside to work as a "sent-down youth". In 1972, he became a factory worker in a local chemical factory. During that time, he organized his colleagues to engage in political campaigns. Following the reinstatement of university entrance exams, he enrolled at Peking University to study law. He graduated from Peking University with a master's degree in criminal procedure...
Go to Profile#894
Jurij Toplak
#26517
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (47 years)
Jurij Toplak is a constitutional scholar, university administrator, election law, and human rights expert. He is a recurring visiting professor at the Fordham University School of Law in New York. Since 2016, he has served as the provost and vice-president of the Alma Mater Europaea university. The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The New York Times, and The Boston Globe published his legal comments.
Go to Profile#895
Ewan McKendrick
#24453
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Ewan Gordon McKendrick is Professor of English Private Law at the University of Oxford. He is known for his academic work on the law of contract, as well as publications in the law of unjust enrichment and commercial law.
Go to Profile#896
Suri Ratnapala
#36785
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Suri Ratnapala is an Australian academic. He is Emeritus Professor of Public Law of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. Biography Born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Suri Ratnapala attended the Royal College, Colombo and the University of Colombo, where he gained his first law degree. His father Amaradasa Ratnapala was a medical doctor and politician. His mother, Ancy Samarasinha, was member of a prominent family in the Southern Province of Sri Lanka. Ratnapala is married to Rusri, née Gunasekera. Their son, Dr Adrian Ratnapala, is a scientist working Germany.
Go to Profile#897
Frans Vanistendael
#17425
Overall Influence
1942 - 2021 (79 years)
Franciscus Vanistendael was a Belgian expert on tax law and former professor at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and the Brussels Tax College . Until 2005 he was dean of the law school of the KU Leuven. He was a member of the Coudenberg group, a Belgian federalist think tank. Frans Vanistendael is a brother of the writer Geert van Istendael.
Go to Profile#898
William P. Rogers
#14871
Overall Influence
1913 - 2001 (88 years)
William Pierce Rogers was an American politician, diplomat, and attorney. A member of the Republican Party, Rogers served as the 4th Deputy Attorney-General of the United States and as the 63rd Attorney-General of the United States in the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower, and as the 55th Secretary of State in the administration of Richard Nixon.
Go to Profile#899
Shaheen Sardar Ali
#36692
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Shaheen Sardar Ali is a British Pakistani law professor and an author who formerly served chair of the National Commission on the Status of Women of Pakistan. She is a professor of law at the University of Warwick.
Go to Profile#900
Steven Point
#32520
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Steven Lewis Point, is a Canadian academic administrator, criminal lawyer, and jurist. He is the current chancellor of the University of British Columbia. He served as the 28th Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia from 2007 to 2012. He also served as the chair of the advisory committee on the safety and security of vulnerable women, a committee that provides community-based guidance to the implementation of the recommendations from the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry.
Go to Profile