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,
#951
Boris Meissner
#38903
Overall Influence
1915 - 2003 (88 years)
Boris Meissner was a German lawyer and social scientist, specializing in Soviet studies, international law and Eastern European history and politics. Life Meissner was the son of Artur Meissner, a judge of Baltic German extraction, and spent his childhood in Pärnu, Estonia. He attended Tartu University, where he received a first degree in economics in 1935. He then studied law in Tartu until he had to leave Estonia during the repatriation of Baltic Germans in 1939.
Go to Profile#952
Nicholas Kasirer
#59220
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Nicholas Kasirer is a puisne justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. He was sworn into office on September 16, 2019. Kasirer was previously a justice with the Quebec Court of Appeal between 2009 and 2019. He is a graduate of the McGill University Faculty of Law, where he served as an editor for the McGill Law Journal, and where he later served as a professor from 1989 to 2009 and dean of the Faculty from 2003 to 2009.
Go to Profile#953
Angela P. Harris
#50819
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Angela P. Harris is an American legal scholar at UC Davis School of Law, in the fields of critical race theory, feminist legal scholarship, and criminal law. She held the position of professor of law at UC Berkeley School of Law, joining the faculty in 1988. In 2009, Harris joined the faculty of the State University of New York at Buffalo Law School as a visiting professor. In 2010, she also assumed the role of acting vice dean for research and faculty development. In 2011, she accepted an offer to join the faculty at the UC Davis School of Law, and began teaching as a professor of law in th...
Go to Profile#954
Gerrit De Geest
#35764
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Gerrit Gaby Aimé De Geest is a Belgian legal scholar and writer specializing in contract law, law and economics, and comparative law. He earned his J.D. in 1983, M.E. in 1986 and Ph.D. in 1993 from Ghent University. With Boudewijn Bouckaert, he was co-editor of Bibliography of law and economics and of the 5-volume Encyclopedia of Law and Economics. He is consultant editor of the European Review of Contract Law and general editor of the book series New Horizons in Law & Economics. He is a member of the European Group on an Integrated Contract Law, the Economic Impact Group of the Common Prin...
Go to Profile#955
Frank Partnoy
#32947
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Frank Partnoy is a Professor of Law at the University of California Berkeley School of Law. He was a George E. Barrett Professor of Law and Finance and the founding director of the Center on Corporate and Securities Law at the University of San Diego, where he taught for 21 years. He is a scholar of the complexities of modern finance and financial market regulation. He worked as a derivatives structurer at Morgan Stanley and CS First Boston during the mid-1990s and wrote Blood in the Water on Wall Street, a book about his experiences there.
Go to Profile#956
Udo Di Fabio
#28739
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Udo Di Fabio is a German jurist. He is a former judge of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, Germany's highest court, where he served as a member of the Second Senate from December 1999 until December 2011.
Go to Profile#957
Winfried Brugger
#40254
Overall Influence
1950 - 2010 (60 years)
Winfried Brugger was Professor of Public Law, Philosophy of Law and Theory of State at Heidelberg University. Brugger studied law, philosophy and sociology at the Universities in Munich and Tuebingen. After completing his Ph.D. at Tuebingen University with the prize-winning book Menschenrechtsethos und Verantwortungspolitik. Max Webers Beitrag zur Analyse und Begruendung der Menschenrechte , he then studied at the University of California in Berkeley, obtaining the degree of LL.M. in 1981. Thereafter, he published comparative articles and books on German and American constitutional law and t...
Go to Profile#958
Vojin Dimitrijević
#32552
Overall Influence
1932 - 2012 (80 years)
Vojin Dimitrijević was a law professor, public intellectual, and a prominent Serbian human rights activist and international law expert. Biography Vojin Dimitrijević was born on 9 July 1932 in Rijeka .
Go to Profile#959
Michael Gerrard
#32956
Overall Influence
Michael Burr Gerrard is an American legal scholar. He is the Andrew Sabin Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia Law School. Biography Gerrard was born in New York City, where his parents were graduate students at Columbia University, and grew up in Charleston, West Virginia. His father, Nathan L. Gerrard, was a professor of sociology at the University of Charleston, and his mother, Louise B. Gerrard, was the executive director of the West Virginia Council on Aging.
Go to Profile#960
Noura Erakat
#26717
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (44 years)
Noura Saleh Erakat is an American activist, university professor, legal scholar, and human rights attorney. She is currently an associate professor at Rutgers University, specializing in international studies. With her primary focus being the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, she is a vocal critic of the State of Israel.
Go to Profile#961
Robert N. Davis
#61449
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Robert Nolan Davis is a senior judge of the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. Education and career Davis graduated from the University of Hartford, West Hartford, Connecticut, in 1975 and the Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, D.C., in 1978. He practiced as an appellate attorney for five years with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Washington, D.C. Thereafter, Davis spent four years with the United States Department of Education, Washington, D.C., in the business and administrative law division. Davis also briefly served as a Special Assistant United St...
Go to Profile#962
Birch Bayh
#17515
Overall Influence
1928 - 2019 (91 years)
Birch Evans Bayh Jr. was an American Democratic Party politician who served as U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1963 to 1981. He was first elected to office in 1954, when he won election to the Indiana House of Representatives; in 1958, he was elected Speaker, the youngest person to hold that office in the state's history. In 1962, he ran for the U.S. Senate, narrowly defeating incumbent Republican Homer E. Capehart. Shortly after entering the Senate, he became Chairman of the Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments, and in that role authored two constitutional amendments: the Twenty-fifth—wh...
Go to Profile#963
Stephen Whittle
#14517
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Stephen Thomas Whittle, is a British legal scholar and activist with the transgender activist group Press for Change. Since 2007, he has been Professor of Equalities Law in the School of Law at Manchester Metropolitan University. Between 2007 and 2009, he was president of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health . Having been assigned female at birth, he is described as "a radical lesbian before his sex change and now a leading commentator on gender issues", who after the Gender Recognition Act 2004 came into force in April 2005, achieved legal recognition as a man and so wa...
Go to Profile#964
Ronald J. Bacigal
#35542
Overall Influence
Ronald J. Bacigal is an American legal scholar and professor of law at the University of Richmond School of Law. He is "nationally recognized as one of the leading scholars of Fourth Amendment Law." Bacigal graduated from Concord University and Washington and Lee University School of Law. In addition, he spent time at The Hague as a Fulbright Scholar. Professor Bacigal has taught at Richmond since 1971 and has been a professor since 1973. He is the reporter for criminal law decisions of the Court of Appeals of Virginia.
Go to Profile#965
David L. Kirp
#20826
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
David Kirp is a professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, a member of the National Academy of Education, a contributing writer to The New York Times and a senior scholar at the Learning Policy Institute, a "think-and-do" tank. He is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Education. In his seventeen books and hundreds of articles, he has concentrated on pivotal education and youth issues from cradle to college and career.
Go to Profile#966
Linda J. Silberman
#42535
Overall Influence
Linda J. Silberman is an American lawyer, currently the Martin Lipton Professor of Law at New York University.
Go to Profile#967
Roy Heenan
#45787
Overall Influence
1935 - 2017 (82 years)
Roy Lacaud Heenan, was a Canadian labour lawyer, academic and art collector. He was a founding partner of the Canadian law firm Heenan Blaikie. Early life and education He was born in Mexico City to Ernest Heenan and his wife Yvonne Lacaud, and moved to Canada in 1947. He attended Trinity College School in Port Hope, Ontario, graduating in 1953. Heenan subsequently received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1957 and a Bachelor of Civil Law degree in 1960, both from McGill University, where he joined the Kappa Alpha Society.
Go to Profile#968
Claire Palley
#23494
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (93 years)
Claire Dorothea Taylor Palley, OBE is a South African academic and lawyer who specialises in constitutional and human rights law. She was the first woman to hold a Chair in Law at a United Kingdom university when she was appointed at Queen's University Belfast in 1970.
Go to Profile#969
Nicholas Katzenbach
#16938
Overall Influence
1922 - 2012 (90 years)
Nicholas deBelleville Katzenbach was an American lawyer who served as United States Attorney General during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration. He previously served as United States Deputy Attorney General under President John F. Kennedy.
Go to Profile#970
Ronald Gilson
#43177
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Ronald J. Gilson is an American lawyer, focusing in corporate governance, law & economics, corporate finance, capital markets, mergers & acquisitions and securities regulation, currently the Charles J. Meyers Professor of Law and Business, Emeritus at Stanford Law School.
Go to Profile#971
Morris L. Cohen
#56610
Overall Influence
1927 - 2010 (83 years)
Morris Leo Cohen was an American attorney who left the practice of law to become a law librarian and professor of law at the University at Buffalo, University of Pennsylvania, Harvard Law School and Yale Law School. Described by The New York Times as "one of the nation's most influential legal librarians", he wrote extensively about the history of law and helped organize and computerize the law libraries at Harvard and Yale.
Go to Profile#972
Willie E. Gary
#22629
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Willie E. Gary is an American trial lawyer, philanthropist, and motivational speaker. Gary recognized the importance of education as a young child and became the first in his family to graduate from high school and go to college. Gary and his wife Gloria established Martin County's first Black law firm at the age of 27, presently known as, Gary, Williams, Parenti, Watson, Gary & Gillespie, P.L.L.C. Gary is portrayed by actor Jamie Foxx in the 2023 film The Burial.
Go to Profile#973
David Fellman
#32168
Overall Influence
1907 - 2003 (96 years)
David Fellman was a political scientist and constitutional scholar and advocate for academic freedom, who taught general constitutional law, administrative law and civil liberties. Background David Fellman was born on September 14, 1907, in Omaha, Nebraska. In 1905, his orthodox Jewish family immigrated to Omaha, Nebraska, from the Volhynia, Belarus . David Fellman was the third of seven children . At age 21, an older brother died; a few years later, his father died.
Go to Profile#974
Daniel D. Blinka
#28334
Overall Influence
Daniel D. Blinka is a practicing trial lawyer and law professor at Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. As a scholar, Blinka focuses primarily on evidence law, criminal procedure, and American history. He teaches evidence, trial advocacy, criminal law, constitutional criminal procedure, ethics, and American history. Blinka holds a Ph.D. in American history and a JD from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he has also taught history courses.
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Charles W. Mooney Jr.
#40472
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Charles W. Mooney Jr. is the Charles A. Heimbold, Jr. Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, as well as the former interim Dean of the law school. Education and law practice Mooney was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma. He attended the University of Oklahoma, where he obtained his BA in 1969, and Harvard Law School, where he earned his JD in 1972. He was admitted to the bar in Oklahoma in 1972, in New York in 1982, and in Pennsylvania in 1988. From 1976 to 1979, he was an adjunct professor at Oklahoma City University.
Go to Profile#976
B. S. Chimni
#50260
Overall Influence
B. S. Chimni is a legal scholar and academic who is presently distinguished professor of international law member at Jindal Global Law School. His areas of expertise include international law, international trade law and international refugee law. He has been chairperson of the Centre for International Legal Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He had a -year stint as vice chancellor of the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences. He has been a visiting professor at the International Center for Comparative Law and Politics, Tokyo University, a Fulbright Visiting Sch...
Go to Profile#977
Douglas A. Melton
#8096
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Douglas A. Melton is an American medical researcher who is the Xander University Professor at Harvard University, and was an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute until 2022. Melton serves as the co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and was the first co-chairman of the Harvard University Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology. Melton is the founder of several biotech companies including Gilead Sciences, Ontogeny , iPierian , and Semma Therapeutics. Melton holds membership in the National Academy of the Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and ...
Go to Profile#978
William Treanor
#53185
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
William Michael Treanor is an American attorney and legal scholar. He is the dean of Georgetown University Law Center, the former dean of Fordham University School of Law, and an expert on constitutional law, having twice been cited in Supreme Court opinions. He continues to teach as a professor. Treanor held several high-profile government positions and he is an advocate of civil service. His teaching and work evidence Treanor's commitment to his philosophy of a complete legal education: "Intellectual excellence, the craft of lawyering, and dedication to public service."
Go to Profile#979
Shigeru Oda
#35727
Overall Influence
1924 - Present (100 years)
Shigeru Oda is a Japanese jurist and was a judge on the International Court of Justice from 1976 until 2003, when he retired. He served as vice-president from 1991 to 1994. His main area of expertise was law of the sea. He was born in Sapporo.
Go to Profile#980
Pierre Mertens
#29470
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
Pierre Mertens is a Belgian French-speaking writer and lawyer who specializes in international law, director of the Centre de sociologie de la littérature at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, and literary critic with the newspaper Le Soir.
Go to Profile#981
Nell Jessup Newton
#38457
Overall Influence
As of August 2022, Nell Jessup Newton is the interim dean at the Wake Forest University School of Law in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She served previously as interim dean of the University of Miami School of Law for the 2021-2022 academic year, and prior to that served as professor of law at Notre Dame Law School and Notre Dame Law School's dean from 2009 to 2019. Her academic focus is on federal law relating to Native Americans.
Go to Profile#982
Julius L. Chambers
#21813
Overall Influence
1936 - 2013 (77 years)
Julius LeVonne Chambers was an American lawyer, civil rights leader and educator. Early life and education Chambers grew up during the Jim Crow era in rural Montgomery County, North Carolina. As a child, Chambers saw first hand the effects of discrimination when his father's auto repair business became a target of racial injustice in 1948. A white customer refused to pay his father and his father could not find a lawyer who was willing to file suit on behalf of a black man against a white man. Chambers has said that this experience made him resolved to pursue a career in law, in order to help end segregation and racial discrimination.
Go to Profile#983
David Ibbetson
#54368
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
David John Ibbetson is a British legal academic. He was Regius Professor of Civil Law at the University of Cambridge from 2000 to 2022, and President of Clare Hall from 2013 to 2020. From 2009 until 2012, he served as the chairman of the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge. He was General Editor of the Cambridge Law Journal between 2003 and 2009.
Go to Profile#984
Caleb Nelson
#49743
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Caleb E. Nelson is the Emerson G. Spies Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. Early life and education Nelson is the son of David Aldrich Nelson, a former judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and Mary Nelson. He graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard University in 1988 with an A.B. in mathematics, where he was editor-in-chief of the Salient. Nelson then moved to Washington, D.C. where he served as the managing editor of The Public Interest, a domestic-policy quarterly. In 1993, he graduated from Yale Law Sc...
Go to Profile#985
Robert Sitkoff
#44227
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (50 years)
Robert H. Sitkoff is the Austin Wakeman Scott Professor of Law and the John L. Gray Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where he specializes in trusts and estates. He previously served as professor of law at New York University School of Law and Northwestern University School of Law.
Go to Profile#986
Jennifer Robinson
#10855
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (43 years)
Jennifer Robinson is an Australian human rights lawyer and barrister with Doughty Street Chambers in London. She is also an adjunct lecturer in Law at the University of Sydney Law School. Robinson is best known for her role as a long-standing member of the legal team defending Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. She has also provided legal assistance to activists from West Papua.
Go to Profile#987
Aileen McColgan
#43745
Overall Influence
Aileen McColgan, KC is a British barrister and academic. She was Professor of Human Rights Law at King's College London between 2001 and 2018 and is now Professor of Law and Social Justice at the University of Leeds. She is an expert in labour law, discrimination and human rights. She works as a practising barrister at 11 KBW . McColgan was selected to become Queen’s Counsel in the 2019 competition and was sworn in in 2020.
Go to Profile#988
Leah Ward Sears
#32417
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Leah Ward Sears is an American jurist and former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia. Sears was the first African-American female chief justice of a state supreme court in the United States. When she was first appointed as justice in 1992 by Governor Zell Miller, she became the first woman and youngest person to sit on Georgia's Supreme Court.
Go to Profile#989
Maria Rita Saulle
#31375
Overall Influence
1935 - 2011 (76 years)
Maria Rita Saulle was a professor of law and a judge in the Italian Constitutional Court from November 2005 until her death on 7 July 2011. Career Saulle was Full Professor of International Law and Human Rights in the Faculty of Political Sciences at the Sapienza University of Rome. She was director of the master's course on International Protection of Human Rights and founded a PhD in International Order and Human Rights. She was appointed judge of the Constitutional Court by the President of Italy on 4 November 2005.
Go to Profile#990
David Paciocco
#44584
Overall Influence
David M. Paciocco is a justice of the Court of Appeal for Ontario in Toronto, Ontario. Paciocco has authored several books on criminal law and is considered one of Canada's foremost experts on the law of evidence.
Go to Profile#991
Kenneth Culp Davis
#49238
Overall Influence
1908 - 2003 (95 years)
Kenneth Culp Davis was an American legal scholar remembered as "the father of administrative law." He was a professor of law at West Virginia University from 1935 to 1939, at the University of Texas at Austin from 1940 to 1948, at Harvard University from 1948 to 1950, at the University of Minnesota from 1950 to 1960, at the University of Chicago from 1961 to 1976, and at the University of San Diego from 1976 until his retirement in 1994.
Go to Profile#992
Lori Fisler Damrosch
#49404
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Lori Fisler Damrosch is an American legal scholar of public international law and U.S. law of foreign relations. She is currently the Hamilton Fish Professor of International Law and Diplomacy at Columbia Law School.
Go to Profile#993
W. Page Keeton
#44234
Overall Influence
1909 - 1999 (90 years)
Werdner Page Keeton was an attorney and dean of the University of Texas School of Law for a quarter century. Education Keeton was born in McCoy in Atascosa County, Texas the son of William Keeton and Ernestine. He attended the University of Texas at Austin where he was a member of both the Tejas Club and the Texas Cowboys. He graduated first in his class at the University of Texas School of Law in 1931 and joined the University of Texas law faculty the following year at the age of 23. He earned a Doctor of Juridical Science from Harvard University in 1936.
Go to Profile#994
Douglas H. Parker
#42393
Overall Influence
1926 - 2019 (93 years)
Douglas Hugh Parker was an American law school professor. He began his law teaching career as a Harry A. Bigelow Teaching Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School and later taught as a professor of law at the University of Colorado College of Law and the Brigham Young University J. Reuben Clark Law School .
Go to Profile#995
Margaret Raymond
#33047
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Margaret Raymond is an American legal scholar who is professor of law and was formerly the Fred W. and Vi Miller dean at the University of Wisconsin Law School. Her research interests include ethics and criminal law.
Go to Profile#996
Jerome Hall
#35818
Overall Influence
1901 - 1992 (91 years)
Jerome Hall was an American legal scholar and academic. He is best known for his pioneering work in interdisciplinary legal analysis. Through his work with the United States Department of State, he offered advice and insight to several countries across the globe as they rewrote some or all of their legal codes.
Go to Profile#997
Joseph M. Dodge
#44701
Overall Influence
Joseph M. Dodge is an American academic who is a leading authority on United States tax law. He is Stearns Weaver Miller Weissler Alhadeff & Sitterson Professor at Florida State University College of Law, and previously served as a faculty member at the University of Texas Law School. He has authored numerous influential articles and several books, including The Logic of Tax and Federal Income Taxation: Doctrine, Structure and Policy . He has also taught at UCLA and the University of Utah.
Go to Profile#998
Deborah Sivas
#56521
Overall Influence
Deborah A. Sivas is an American environmental lawyer currently the Luke W. Cole Professor at Stanford Law School. Her current concerns are environmental litigation, responsibility and protection.
Go to Profile#999
Martin Killias
#48813
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Christoph Martin Killias is a Swiss criminologist who has been a permanent visiting professor at the University of St. Gallen's law school since 2013. He is also the co-chair of the Campbell Collaboration's Crime and Justice Group.
Go to Profile#1000
Elizabeth Garrett
#14801
Overall Influence
1963 - 2016 (53 years)
Helen Elizabeth Garrett, commonly known as Elizabeth Garrett or Beth Garrett , was an American professor of law and academic administrator. On July 1, 2015, she became the 13th president of Cornell University—the first woman to serve as president of the university. She died from colon cancer on March 6, 2016, the first Cornell president to die while in office.
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