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 …
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List of the most influential people in Law,
#901
Tracey Meares
#31447
Overall Influence
Tracey L. Meares is an American legal scholar and author. She is the Walton Hale Hamilton Professor of Law at Yale Law School. Previous to joining the Yale Law School faculty, she was Max Pam Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Studies in Criminal Justice at the University of Chicago Law School. At both Chicago and Yale, she was the first African-American woman to be granted tenure.
Go to Profile#902
Staughton Lynd
#7993
Overall Influence
1929 - 2022 (93 years)
Staughton Craig Lynd was an American political activist, author, and lawyer. His involvement in social justice causes brought him into contact with some of the nation's most influential activists, including Howard Zinn, Tom Hayden, A. J. Muste, and David Dellinger.
Go to Profile#903
Charles Mitchell
#52769
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Charles Christopher James Mitchell KC is a British legal scholar acknowledged as one of the leading common-law experts on the English law of restitution of unjust enrichment and the law of trusts. He is the author of two leading textbooks and one practitioner's book. He is currently Professor of Law at University College London and Senior Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies.
Go to Profile#904
Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im
#19487
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im is a Sudanese-born Islamic scholar who lives in the United States and teaches at Emory University. He is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law at Emory University School of Law, associated professor in the Emory College of Arts and Sciences, and Senior Fellow of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion of Emory University.
Go to Profile#905
Dolores Sloviter
#37892
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (92 years)
Dolores Korman Sloviter was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Education and career Born to a Jewish-American family in 1932 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Sloviter attended Philadelphia High School for Girls. She graduated from Temple University in 1953 with a bachelor's degree and received her Bachelor of Laws in 1956 from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she served as a Comments Editor of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. She was a law clerk for the City of Philadelphia Law Department in 1955. Sloviter was in ...
Go to Profile#906
James R. Browning
#30444
Overall Influence
1918 - 2012 (94 years)
James Robert Browning was an American attorney and jurist who served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Early life and education Browning was born on October 1, 1918, in Great Falls, Montana. He grew up in Belt, Montana and attended high school there.
Go to Profile#907
David M. Holtzman
#49645
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
David M. Holtzman is an American physician-scientist known for his work exploring the biological mechanisms underlying neurodegeneration, with a focus on Alzheimer's disease. Holtzman is former Chair of the Department of Neurology, Scientific Director of the Hope Center for Neurological Disorders, and associate director of the Knight Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. Holtzman's lab is known for examining how apoE4 contributes to Alzheimer's disease as well as how sleep modulates amyloid beta in the brain. His work has also ...
Go to Profile#908
Paul M. Schwartz
#40561
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Paul Schwartz is an expert in information privacy law. He is the Jefferson E. Peyser Professor at the UC Berkeley School of Law and a director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology. He is the former Anita and Stuart Subotnick Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School, from 1998 to 2004.
Go to Profile#909
Shigemitsu Dandō
#29319
Overall Influence
1913 - 2012 (99 years)
was a professor of the department of Social and Political sciences at the University of Tokyo, an academic researcher of criminology, and a Justice of the Supreme Court of Japan. Overviews Dandō was born in Yamaguchi, and raised in Okayama Prefecture.
Go to Profile#910
Michael Wood
#52957
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Sir Michael Charles Wood is a member of the International Law Commission. He was the principal Legal Adviser to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office between 1999 and 2006. During 35 years as a lawyer in the FCO, he attended many international conferences, including the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. He now practices as a barrister from chambers at 20 Essex Street, in London.
Go to Profile#911
David Usupashvili
#28150
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
David Usupashvili is a Georgian lawyer and politician who was the chairman of the Parliament of Georgia from 2012 to 2016. He served as the chairman of the Republican Party of Georgia from June 27, 2005 to November 3, 2013. Nowadays, he is a chairman of the Political Council of Lelo for Georgia.
Go to Profile#912
E. Tendayi Achiume
#21548
Overall Influence
E. Tendayi Achiume is the Alicia Miñana Professor of Law and former Faculty Director of the Promise Institute for Human Rights at the University of California, Los Angeles. She served as the United Nations special rapporteur on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance from her appointment in September 2017 until November 2022. She was the first woman appointed to this position since its creation in 1993.
Go to Profile#913
Luo Xiang
#35511
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (47 years)
Luo Xiang is a Chinese jurist. He serves as the professor and director of the Institute of Criminal Law of the China University of Political Science and Law. He is also a lawyer with his field of study centered on criminal justice and sex crimes. He is best known for his tutorials with humorous analogies and thorough interpretations on the National Judicial Examination of Chinese Mainland going viral on social medias including Bilibili, where he receives pervasive critical acclaim among the younger generation.
Go to Profile#914
Joseph W. Singer
#30245
Overall Influence
Joseph William Singer is an American legal theorist specializing in property law. He is the Bussey Professor of Law at Harvard University, where he has been teaching since 1992. Previously, he taught at Boston University School of Law and practiced law in Boston. He also served as a law clerk in the Supreme Court of New Jersey.
Go to Profile#915
Kyle D. Logue
#52063
Overall Influence
Kyle D. Logue is an American law professor and the Douglas A. Kahn Collegiate Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. He was appointed to serve as interim dean of the Law School effective January 1, 2024, until a permanent dean is appointed. From 2006-2016 he was the Wade H. and Dores M. McCree Collegiate Professor of Law. Logue is a leading scholar and teacher in the fields of insurance law, tax law, and torts. Logue uses insights from economics, psychology, and other disciplines to shed light on issues relating to the allocation, regulation, and fair distribution of risk in society.
Go to Profile#916
James Vorenberg
#40445
Overall Influence
1927 - 2000 (73 years)
James Vorenberg was the Roscoe Pound Professor of Law and Dean of Harvard Law School, former Watergate Associate Special Prosecutor, and first chair of the Massachusetts State Ethics Commission. Biography Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Vorenberg attended Harvard College, from which he graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1948, and Harvard Law School, from which he earned the Juris Doctor degree in 1951. In his first year at Harvard Law, he achieved the highest grades in his class and was awarded the Sears Prize. He served as the president of the Harvard Law Review while attending the school.
Go to Profile#917
Giuseppe Conte
#12567
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
Giuseppe Conte is an Italian jurist, academic, and politician who served as prime minister of Italy from June 2018 to February 2021. He has been the president of the Five Star Movement since August 2021.
Go to Profile#918
Anthony Carty
#40522
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
John Anthony "Tony" Carty, , is a legal scholar in Hong Kong, where he holds the Sir Y K Pao Chair Professorship of Public Law in the University of Hong Kong. He formerly served as Professor of Public Law in the University of Aberdeen.
Go to Profile#919
Wolfgang Hoffmann-Riem
#27261
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
Wolfgang Hoffmann-Riem is a German legal scholar and a former justice of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany. Career Wolfgang Hoffmann-Riem was born into a family of teachers. He had four siblings, one of whom died at a very young age. After passing the general qualification for university entrance at the Walddörfer-Gymnasium in Hamburg, he studied law while minoring in economics at the Universities of Hamburg, Freiburg i.Br., Munich, and Berkeley. He was awarded an LL.M. at Berkeley. In 1964 he passed the first state examination and in 1968 obtained a doctorate in law. After passing the second state examination in 1970, he spent four years working as a lawyer.
Go to Profile#920
Vilenas Vadapalas
#49243
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Vilenas Vadapalas is a Lithuanian lawyer. He became the first representative of Lithuania at the Court of First Instance of the European Union, when he was appointed in 2004. Vadapalas specializes in the fields of public international law, law of the European Union, and international human rights law.
Go to Profile#921
George Lenczowski
#16205
Overall Influence
1915 - 2000 (85 years)
George Lenczowski was a lawyer, diplomat, scholar, and Professor of Political Science, Emeritus, at the University of California, Berkeley. Lenczowski was a pioneer in his field as the founder and first chair of the Committee of Middle Eastern Studies at Berkeley. He was among America's first major scholars of the modern Middle East.
Go to Profile#922
Joan Mahoney
#21594
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Joan Mahoney is a legal scholar and former dean of two law schools. She served as Dean at Wayne State University Law School in Detroit, Michigan, from 1998 to 2003, the first woman law school dean in Michigan and one of the very few women in the United States to have held the deanship at two different law schools. Prior to her tenure as Dean at Wayne State, she served from 1994 to 1996 as Dean of Western New England College School of Law in Springfield, Massachusetts. .
Go to Profile#923
Thomas Heller
#49822
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Thomas C. Heller is a climate policy lawyer and academic. He currently serves as the chairman of the board for Climate Policy Initiative, an organization he founded in 2009 that works to improve energy and land use policies, with offices and programs in Brazil, China, Europe, India, and Indonesia, and the United States.
Go to Profile#924
Pavel Zářecký
#47526
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
Pavel Zářecký is a Czech politician and lawyer. He's the former Chairman of the Legislative Council. Early life Zářecký is a graduate of the Charles University in Prague. He's married and has one daughter. In 1966-1969 he was a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.
Go to Profile#925
Takayasu Okushima
#14390
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
Takayasu Okushima is a law professor, President of Hakuoh University, former President of Waseda University, the 10th and present Chief Scout of the Scout Association of Japan since April 1, 2010, and served as the Camp Chief of the 23rd World Scout Jamboree.
Go to Profile#926
Aaron Edlin
#15922
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Aaron S. Edlin is an American economist and lawyer specializing in antitrust and competition policy. In 1997–1998, he served in the Clinton White House as Senior Economist within the Council of Economic Advisers focusing on the areas of industrial organization, regulation and antitrust. In 1999, he co-founded the Berkeley Electronic Press, an electronic publishing company that assists with scholarly communication.
Go to Profile#927
Gordon B. Mills
#58385
Overall Influence
Gordon B. Mills is the Wayne and Julie Drinkward Endowed Chair in Precision Oncology, Director of Precision Oncology, Director of SMMART Trials and Professor in Cell, Development and Cancer Biology in the Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health & Science University.
Go to Profile#928
James Blumstein
#51478
Overall Influence
James F. Blumstein is an American legal and health scholar. He is a professor at Vanderbilt University and is cited by the university as "among the nation's most prominent scholars of health law, law and medicine, and voting rights." He has worked at the law faculty of the university since 1970, teaching health policy and law as well as constitutional law. Blumstein also serves as the director of the university's health policy center, and was recognized for his leadership in health law and policy by being elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine.
Go to Profile#929
Robert Raich
#64554
Overall Influence
Robert Raich is an American attorney. He served as legal counsel in the only two medical cannabis cases heard by the United States Supreme Court: United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative in 2001 and Gonzales v. Raich in 2005. His spouse at the time, Angel Raich, was a party in the 2005 case. In 1995, he became one of the founders of California Proposition 215, the initiative that created the first medical cannabis framework in the United States. Raich has been an instructor at Oaksterdam University, where he teaches "how to create defenses against possible hostile action by the go...
Go to Profile#930
Conor McPherson
#8190
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (53 years)
Conor McPherson is an Irish playwright, screenwriter and director of stage and film. In recognition of his contribution to world theatre, McPherson was awarded a doctorate of Literature, Honoris Causa, in June 2013 by the University College Dublin.
Go to Profile#931
Alexander McQueen
#1773
Overall Influence
1969 - 2010 (41 years)
Lee Alexander McQueen was a British fashion designer and couturier. He founded his own Alexander McQueen label in 1992, and was chief designer at Givenchy from 1996 to 2001. His achievements in fashion earned him four British Designer of the Year awards , as well as the CFDA's International Designer of the Year award in 2003. McQueen died by suicide in 2010 at the age of 40, at his home in Mayfair, London, shortly after the death of his mother.
Go to Profile#932
Mark Seidenfeld
#44262
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Mark B. Seidenfeld is an American legal academic who is known for his contributions to American administrative law. He is the Patricia A. Dore Professor of Administrative Law at the Florida State University College of Law.
Go to Profile#933
Edward H. Cooper
#54158
Overall Influence
Edward Hayes Cooper is the Thomas M. Cooley Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Michigan Law School. He is a leading scholar of civil procedure and federal jurisdiction. Cooper is among the most widely cited authorities in civil procedure.
Go to Profile#934
Brian C. Kalt
#37205
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Brian C. Kalt is an American legal scholar at the Michigan State University College of Law, particularly known for his research of the constitution of the United States. Career Kalt has taught at Michigan State University College of Law since July 2000. He received tenure in 2006, and has been a full professor and the Harold Norris Faculty Scholar since 2010. He teaches Torts and Administrative Law. His research focuses on structural constitutional law, the presidency, and juries.
Go to Profile#935
Joseph Glannon
#36300
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Joseph Glannon, J.D. is a professor at Suffolk University Law School and author of several legal guides. He has taught courses in civil procedure, conflict of laws, and torts at Suffolk since 1980. He received a Bachelor of Arts in English, a Master of Arts in Teaching and Juris Doctor from Harvard University. Before attending law school, Glannon served as an assistant dean of men and coordinator of student activities at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. After graduating from Harvard Law, Glannon was a clerk for the Massachusetts Appeals Court.
Go to Profile#936
Issa G. Shivji
#12960
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Issa Gulamhussein Shivji is a Tanzanian author and academic, and an experts on law and development issues. He has taught and worked in universities all over the world. He is a writer and researcher, producing books, monographs and articles, as well as a weekly column printed in national newspapers.
Go to Profile#937
Clark Clifford
#13264
Overall Influence
1906 - 1998 (92 years)
Clark McAdams Clifford was an American lawyer who served as an important political adviser to Democratic presidents Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Jimmy Carter. His official government positions were White House Counsel , Chairman of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board , and Secretary of Defense ; Clifford was also influential in his role as an unofficial, informal presidential adviser in various issues. A successful Washington, D.C., lawyer, he was known for his elite clientele, charming manners, and impeccable suits.
Go to Profile#938
Mauro Bussani
#58505
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Mauro Bussani is Professor of Comparative Law at the University of Trieste Law School, Italy, and Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Macao, Special Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China. In 2019 he was awarded a Ph.D. honoris causa by the Faculty of Law at the University of Fribourg, in Switzerland. Mauro Bussani is considered an outstanding expert of comparative law, and his work has been broadly recognized worldwide. His research focuses, among other themes, on the comparative law of contracts, torts, and security interests, on European private law an...
Go to Profile#939
William K. Kelley
#47876
Overall Influence
William K. Kelley served as Deputy Counsel to United States President George W. Bush. He worked as a deputy to White House Counsel Harriet Miers prior to her departure from the White House, and Counsel Fred Fielding, who succeeded Miers.
Go to Profile#940
Helmut Coing
#43119
Overall Influence
1912 - 2000 (88 years)
Helmut Coing was a German legal historian. His work focused on the history of European private law, especially in the Middle Ages, legal history in Germany and the philosophy of law. Life and career Helmut Coing came from a Huguenot family of civil servants. After graduating from the Ratsgymnasium in Hanover, he studied law at the Universities of Kiel, Munich, Göttingen and Lille. In 1935 he received his Dr. jur. promoviert. He then moved to the University of Frankfurt am Main, where he habilitated in 1938 with Erich Genzmer. In August 1939, reserve officer Coing was drafted into the German Wehrmacht.
Go to Profile#941
Hans-Wolfgang Arndt
#30589
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Hans-Wolfgang Arndt is a German lawyer, professor for tax law and former president of the University of Mannheim from 2001 to 2012. Previously he was professor for tax law at the Department für Rechtswissenschaften at the University of Konstanz.
Go to Profile#942
David Vladeck
#44396
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
David C. Vladeck is the former director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection of the Federal Trade Commission, an independent agency of the United States government. He was appointed by the chairman of the FTC, Jon Leibowitz, on April 14, 2009, shortly after Leibowitz became chairman.
Go to Profile#943
Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou
#42131
Overall Influence
Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou is a scholar of human rights law who has worked for the University of Liverpool since 2015. Works
Go to Profile#944
Mohammad Fadel
#50034
Overall Influence
Mohammad Fadel is a Professor and Toronto Research Chair for the Law and Economics of Islamic Law at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. He is a member in the board of directors of NAML and Muslim Advocates. He researches Sharia.
Go to Profile#945
Takis Tridimas
#49284
Overall Influence
Takis Tridimas is a professor of European Law in King's College London and a former professor in Queen Mary University of London. He is a member of the bar in Middle Temple. He has served as référendaire to Sir Francis Jacobs in the European Court of Justice.
Go to Profile#946
Afe Babalola
#27660
Overall Influence
1929 - Present (95 years)
Afe Babalola is a Nigerian lawyer and founder of Afe Babalola University. Early life and education Afe Babalola was born in Ekiti State South Western Nigeria. He attended Emmanuel Primary School, Ado Ekiti. He enrolled for the Senior Cambridge School Certificate examination by private study from Wolsey Hall, Oxford. He later obtained the A’Level certificate of London University before he proceeded to London School of Economics where he received a bachelor's degree in Economics. He worked briefly at the Central Bank of Nigeria before he left to the University of London where he obtained a bachelor's degree in Law.
Go to Profile#947
David Boies
#23897
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
David Boies is an American lawyer and chairman of the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner LLP. Boies rose to national prominence for three major cases: leading the U.S. federal government's successful prosecution of Microsoft in United States v. Microsoft Corp., his unsuccessful representation of Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore in Bush v. Gore, and for successful representation of the plaintiff in Hollingsworth v. Perry, which invalidated California Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage. Boies has also represented various clients in US lawsuits, including Theranos, tobacco companies, ...
Go to Profile#948
Gregory Sisk
#47973
Overall Influence
Gregory Charles Sisk is an American legal scholar. Sisk earned his bachelor's degree from Montana State University and studied law at the University of Washington School of Law. He taught for twelve years at the Drake University School of Law, where he held the Richard M. & Anita Calkins Distinguished Professorship, before joining the University of St. Thomas School of Law in 2003, where he is the Pio Cardinal Laghi Distinguished Chair in Law. Sisk is an elected member of the American Law Institute.
Go to Profile#949
Gunther Teubner
#28144
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Gunther Teubner is a German legal scholar and sociologist, best known for his works within the field of Social Theory of Law. His work "stands as one of the most highly evolved positions in the contemporary sociology of law and legal-political norms".
Go to Profile#950
Douglas Melamed
#38789
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Arthur Douglas Melamed is an American legal scholar specializing in antitrust law. Since 2014, Melamed has been a professor, first visiting then professor of the practice, at Stanford Law School. He was previously Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Intel Corporation and the chair of the Antitrust and Competition Practice Group at the law firm of WilmerHale.
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