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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List of the most influential people in Law,

#1001

Norman Dorsen

#35260

Overall Influence

1930 - 2017 (87 years)

Norman Dorsen was the Frederick I. and Grace A. Stokes Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Arthur Garfield Hays Civil Liberties Program at the New York University School of Law, where he specialized in Constitutional Law, Civil Liberties, and Comparative Constitutional Law. Previously, he was president of the American Civil Liberties Union, 1976–1991. He was also president of the Society of American Law Teachers, 1972–1973, and president of the U.S. Association of Constitutional Law in 2000.

#1002

Ekaterina Trendafilova

#33396

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Ekaterina Trendafilova is a Bulgarian lawyer and judge with international and domestic experience. She is currently serving as the first President of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers – a position to which she was appointed in December 2016 for a four-year term and took her office on 12 January 2017.

#1003

John V. Orth

#42630

Overall Influence

John V. Orth is an American legal scholar and author. He is the William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law. He earned an A.B. at Oberlin College, and then proceeded to acquire a J.D. , M.A. , and PhD at Harvard University.

#1004

Kaarlo Tuori

#62724

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Kaarlo Heikki Tuori is a Finnish legal scholar. He was born in Helsinki. After taking his doctorate in jurisprudence in 1983, he eventually became professor of jurisprudence at the University of Helsinki. His main works are Oikeuden rationalisuus , Oikeus, valta ja demokratia and Critical Legal Positivism . He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

#1005

Suzette M. Malveaux

#44539

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Suzette M. Malveaux is an American law professor and civil rights lawyer. She is currently Provost Professor of Civil Rights Law and Director of the Byron R. White Center for the Study of American Law at the University of Colorado Law School. She has also taught at the Columbus School of Law, Catholic University of America and the University of Alabama School of Law. She teaches Civil Procedure, Complex Litigation, Employment Discrimination and Civil Rights. She is a nationally recognized expert on civil rights law and class action litigation, who has appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court and argued before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

#1006

Philip Randle

#42840

Overall Influence

1926 - 2006 (80 years)

Sir Philip John Randle was a British medical researcher after whom the Randle cycle is named. Early life and education Born 16 July 1926 in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, Randle was educated at King Edward VI Grammar School, Nuneaton; Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he read the Nature Sciences Tripos, graduating with first-class honours and an M.A.; University College Hospital and the UCL Medical School, where he read medicine and graduated with an M.D.

#1007

Sandra Fredman

#21969

Overall Influence

Sandra Fredman FBA, KC is a professor of law in the Faculty of Law at the University of Oxford and a fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford. Early life and education Fredman was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and received her undergraduate degree in mathematics and philosophy from Witwatersrand University. She then worked for a short time as a political and labour journalist before attending Wadham College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. She received First Class Honours for the BA in Law and the BCL.

#1008

Teng Biao

#19175

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (51 years)

Teng Biao is a Chinese lawyer and political activist. He is a lecturer at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing. He has been a vocal supporter of human rights activists such as Chen Guangcheng and Hu Jia. He has been arrested at least twice, in March 2008 and in February 2011. He was also a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School from and at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

#1009

Michael Fitts

#45621

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Michael Andrew Fitts is an American legal scholar who is the current president of Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, and the Judge Rene H. Himel Professor of Law at the Tulane School of Law. He is a former Dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He is also the author of numerous articles that have appeared in the Harvard Law Journal and other prestigious scholarly publications.

#1010

Raymond Wacks

#38868

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Raymond Wacks is Emeritus Professor of Law and Legal Theory at the University of Hong Kong, where he was Head of the Department of Law from 1986 to 1993. He was previously Professor of Public Law and Head of the Department of Public Law at the University of Natal in Durban. He retired at the end of 2001, and now lives in Lincolnshire.

#1011

Ozan Varol

#62711

Overall Influence

1981 - Present (43 years)

Ozan Varol is an author and was a tenured law professor at Lewis & Clark Law School. He is best known for coining the phrase "democratic coup" and authoring the book The Democratic Coup d'État.

#1012

David P. Currie

#47992

Overall Influence

1936 - 2007 (71 years)

David P. Currie was the Edward H. Levi Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School, noted for his histories of the Constitution in Congress and the Supreme Court, his casebooks on federal courts and conflict of laws. He was the son of legal scholar Brainerd Currie. His wife was Barbara Flynn Currie, Majority Leader of the Illinois House of Representatives.

#1013

Barbara McQuade

Barbara McQuade

#23656

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Barbara Lynn McQuade is an American lawyer who served as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan from 2010 to 2017. As part of President Donald Trump's 2017 dismissal of U.S. attorneys, she stepped down in March 2017. She is a professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School and a legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC.

#1014

Jenna Ellis

#21585

Overall Influence

1984 - Present (40 years)

Jenna Lynn Ellis is an American conservative lawyer known for her work as a member of Donald Trump's 2020 re-election campaign's legal team. She is a former deputy district attorney in Weld County, Colorado. Since 2018, Ellis has presented herself as a "constitutional law attorney" during cable news appearances, though The New York Times reported her background did not reflect such expertise and The Wall Street Journal reported she had no history in any federal cases.

#1015

Ellen D. Katz

#57007

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Ellen D. Katz is an American legal scholar at the University of Michigan Law School. Katz has written "a significant body of scholarship on voting rights and election law" and has also written and taught on equal protection, civil rights, and legal history. A scholar of the Voting Rights Act, she wrote a widely cited empirical study of litigation under that act.

#1016

Marc Galanter

#24439

Overall Influence

1931 - Present (93 years)

Marc Galanter is a Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin Law School. Previously he was the John and Rylla Bosshard Professor of Law and South Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and LSE Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He teaches South Asian Law, Law and Social Science, Legal Profession, Religion and the Law, Contracts, Dispute Processing and Negotiations. He has authored numerous books and articles related to law, the legal profession and the provision of legal services in India.

#1017

Lavanya Rajamani

#45487

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (51 years)

Lavanya Rajamani is an Indian lawyer, author and professor whose area of expertise is international climate change law, environmental law, and policy. She is currently a professor of International Environmental Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, a Yamani Fellow in Public International Law at St Peter's College, Oxford, and a visiting professor at the Centre for Policy Research.

#1018

Robert K. Rasmussen

#43820

Overall Influence

Robert K. Rasmussen is an American legal scholar who is currently the J. Thomas McCarthy Trustee Chair in Law and Political Science at the USC Gould School of Law, where he served as Dean from 2007 to 2015. He is a prominent scholar of bankruptcy law.

#1019

Philippe Ardant

#41367

Overall Influence

1929 - 2007 (78 years)

Philippe Ardant was a French jurist, former president of the Constitutional Court of the principality of Andorra, former president of the Arab World Institute and former president of Panthéon-Assas University. He had been a professor at the universities of Poitiers, Beirut and Panthéon-Assas. He had co-founded Pouvoirs, a journal of constitutional law and political science.

#1020

Gary D. Solis

#32076

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

Gary Dean Solis is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps and an adjunct professor of law who teaches the laws of war at the Georgetown University Law Center and the George Washington University Law School.

#1021

James Ware

#26648

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

William James Ware is a retired United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Early life and education Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Ware received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1969 from California Lutheran University and a Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School in 1972. Ware was a United States Army Reserve Second Lieutenant in 1972 and also served in the United States Army as a Military Police Officer in 1973. Ware also served as a United States Army Reserve Captain in the Military Police from 1973 to 1986 after graduating from Stanf...

#1022

Andrei Iancu

#25654

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

Andrei Iancu is a Romanian-American engineer and intellectual property attorney, who served as the under secretary of commerce for intellectual property and director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office from 2017 to 2021. He was nominated for both positions in 2017 by President Donald Trump. He left office January 20, 2021.

#1023

Muthucumaraswamy Sornarajah

#38049

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Muthucumaraswamy Sornarajah is a legal academic. He is an Emeritus Professor and former C. J. Koh Professor of Law at the National University of Singapore, the Tunku Abdul Rahman Professor of Law at the University of Malaya, and the former head of the school of law at the University of Tasmania. He is also a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Human Rights, London School of Economics. He has been arbitrator, counsel or expert in several leading investment arbitrations.

#1024

David Mirkin

#5203

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

David Mirkin is an American feature film and television director, writer and producer. Mirkin grew up in Philadelphia and intended to become an electrical engineer, but abandoned this career path in favor of studying film at Loyola Marymount University. After graduating, he became a stand-up comedian, and then moved into television writing. He wrote for the sitcoms Three's Company, It's Garry Shandling's Show and The Larry Sanders Show and served as showrunner on the series Newhart. After an unsuccessful attempt to remake the British series The Young Ones, Mirkin created Get a Life in 1990. T...

#1025

E. Randol Schoenberg

#22405

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Eric Randol Schoenberg is an American lawyer and genealogist, based in Los Angeles, California, specializing in legal cases related to the recovery of looted or stolen artworks, particularly those by the Nazi regime during the Holocaust.

#1026

Wendell Pritchett

#13024

Overall Influence

Wendell Eric Pritchett is an American lawyer, legal scholar, professor, and university administrator. He is currently the James S. Riepe Presidential Professor of Law and Education at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. From February to June 2022, Pritchett served as interim president of the University of Pennsylvania; he is the first Black individual to serve as the university's president.

#1027

Joseph Gutheinz

Joseph Gutheinz

#13694

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Joseph Richard Gutheinz is an American attorney, college instructor, commissioner, writer, and former Army intelligence officer, Army aviator, and Federal law enforcement officer. He is known as the founder of the "Moon Rock Project" which aims to track down missing Apollo Moon rock samples.

#1028

Michael Rebell

#23519

Overall Influence

Michael A. Rebell is the executive director of the Center for Educational Equity at Teachers College, Columbia University. He is an experienced litigator in the field of education law, and he is also professor of law and educational practice at Teachers College. He has also taught at Harvard, Yale and Columbia Law Schools.

#1029

Megan Davis

#33313

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (49 years)

Megan Jane Davis is an Aboriginal Australian activist and international human rights lawyer. She was the first Indigenous Australian to sit on a United Nations body, and was Chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Davis is Pro Vice-Chancellor, Indigenous, and Balnaves Chair in Constitutional Law at the University of New South Wales. She is especially known for her work on the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

#1030

William Kaplan

#20585

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

William Kaplan is a Canadian lawyer and writer. Biography Born in Toronto, Ontario, Kaplan is the son of Igor Kaplan and Cara Cherniak. He graduated from the University of Toronto in 1980 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. He went on to Osgoode Hall Law School at York University, where he graduated in 1983 with a Bachelor of Laws. He graduated from the University of Toronto in 1985 with a Master of Arts, and from Stanford University Law School in 1988 with a J.S.D. degree.

#1031

William H. Simon

#37690

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

William H. Simon is an American legal scholar working as the Arthur Levitt Professor of Law and Everett B. Birch Professor in Professional Responsibility of Law at Columbia Law School. Education Simon earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton University in 1969 and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1974.

#1032

Michael Rustad

#41152

Overall Influence

Michael Rustad is a law professor at Suffolk University Law School, and an author and television commentator. Education and career He received a BA from University of North Dakota, an MA from the University of Maryland, College Park, a Ph.D. from Boston College, a Juris Doctor from Suffolk University Law School, and an LL.M from Harvard University.

#1033

Inés Mónica Weinberg de Roca

Inés Mónica Weinberg de Roca

#37711

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Justice Inés Mónica Weinberg de Roca is an Argentine Judge of the Supreme Court of city of Buenos Aires and a Judge of the United Nations Appeals Tribunal in New York City. She was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina on December 16, 1948.

#1034

Nili Cohen

#19076

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Nili Cohen is an Israeli professor and legal expert. She is a recipient of the Israel Prize, and was the President of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, succeeding Prof. Ruth Arnon, Cohen's role model. She is aa member of the Academia Europaea, of the American Philosophical Society, and a foreign member of the accademia dei lincei.

#1035

Michael J. Saks

#22052

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Michael J. Saks is a professor of law at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University; he holds a secondary appointment in the department of psychology. Saks served as president of the American Psychology-Law Society and as editor of the scientific journal, Law and Human Behavior. For his early work on jury research, he earned the Award for Distinguished Contribution to Psychology in the Public Interest from the American Psychological Association.

#1036

Susy Frankel

#47048

Overall Influence

Susy Rebecca Frankel is a New Zealand law academic, and as of 2019 is a full professor at the Victoria University of Wellington. Academic career After an LL.B. at Victoria University of Wellington and an LLM at Queen Mary University of London, Frankel returned to Wellington, rising to full professor. She serves on the board of the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council. She was elected Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi in 2018.

#1037

F. A. Mann

#57383

Overall Influence

1907 - 1991 (84 years)

Frederick Alexander Mann, CBE, FBA, QC also known as Francis Mann was a German-born British jurist. A solicitor in private practice for most of his career, he was nevertheless one of the most influential legal scholars of his generation, being a noted authority on international law and the law of money.

#1038

Leondra Kruger

#42101

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (48 years)

Leondra Reid Kruger is an American judge who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of California. A native of South Pasadena, California, she graduated from Harvard College and Yale Law School. Kruger then clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, and subsequently worked in private practice and as a professor. She served as acting Principal Deputy Solicitor General of the United States from 2010 to 2011, and worked in the Office of Legal Counsel. In 2014, California Governor Jerry Brown nominated Kruger to a seat on the Supreme Court of California. She was confi...

#1039

Gregory E. Maggs

#37724

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Gregory Eaton Maggs is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. He was previously the Arthur Selwyn Miller Research Professor of Law and Co-Director of the National Security & U.S. Foreign Relations Law Program at the George Washington University Law School.

#1040

Yozo Yokota

#44125

Overall Influence

1940 - 2019 (79 years)

Yozo Yokota was a professor of Law who acted as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar from 1992 to 1996. Academic career Yozo Yokota was born in New York City, USA on 17 October 1940. He gained a Doctorate in Law from the Graduate School of Law and Politics of the University of Tokyo in 1969. He was Legal Counsel of the World Bank from 1974 to 1976.

#1041

Benjamin L. Liebman

Benjamin L. Liebman

#44497

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (55 years)

Benjamin L. Liebman is the Robert L. Lieff Professor of Law and the director of the Hong Yen Chang Center for Chinese Legal Studies at Columbia Law School. He is widely regarded as one of the world's pre-eminent scholars of contemporary Chinese law.

#1042

Nancy H. Rogers

#41545

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Nancy Hardin Rogers is an American lawyer, author, and former Attorney General of Ohio, a former Dean of the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law and the former holder of the Michael E. Moritz Chair in Alternative Dispute Resolution at the Moritz College of Law. She is currently a professor emeritus.

#1043

Wang Canfa

#37549

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Wang Canfa is a Chinese professor at the China University of Political Science and Law, and the founder and director of the Beijing-based Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims . Wang Canfa is an environmental law expert and he has participated in the drafting of many Chinese environmental regulations. Professor Wang has also provided environmental training to hundreds of lawyers and judges and established a network of environmental advocates in China.

#1044

Tim Kaine

#18260

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Timothy Michael Kaine is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Virginia since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 70th governor of Virginia from 2006 to 2010, and as the 38th lieutenant governor of Virginia from 2002 to 2006. Kaine was the Democratic nominee for vice president of the United States in the 2016 election as Hillary Clinton's running mate.

#1045

Anne van Aaken

#40050

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (55 years)

Anne Sophia-Marie van Aaken is a German lawyer and economist, who is a full professor of law and economics, legal theory, public international law and European law at the University of Hamburg. Life Van Aaken completed her Abitur in Bonn. From 1987 to 1992 she studied economics with the degree of Lic. pole. and communication sciences with the degree dipl. journ. at the University of Friborg and then from 1992 to 1997 law at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. There she graduated in 1997 with a first state examination First Juristische Staatsexamen. Van Aaken was a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, and Yale University in 1997 and 1998.

#1046

Rino Rappuoli

#12811

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Rino Rappuoli is an Italian immunologist. He is the head of vaccine research and development at GlaxoSmithKline Vaccines. Previously, he has served as visiting scientist at Rockefeller University and Harvard Medical School and held roles at Sclavo, Vaccine Research and CSO, Chiron Corporation, and Novartis Vaccines.

#1047

M. Margaret McKeown

M. Margaret McKeown

#28983

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Mary Margaret McKeown is a Senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit based in San Diego. McKeown has served on the Ninth Circuit since her confirmation in 1998.

#1048

John Witte Jr.

#27384

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

John Witte Jr. is a Canadian-American academic. He is a Robert W. Woodruff University Professor and a McDonald Distinguished Professor at Emory University School of Law in Atlanta, Georgia, and is director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion there.

#1049

Frédéric Rouvillois

#42710

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Frédéric Rouvillois is a French academic and author. He is a Professor of Public Law at Paris Descartes University and the author of more than 30 books. Works

#1050

Lynn A. Stout

#47976

Overall Influence

1957 - 2018 (61 years)

Lynn Andrea Stout was an American corporate law scholar. She was a Distinguished Professor of Corporate & Business Law at the Cornell Law School and, before that, the Paul Hastings Professor of Corporate and Securities Law at UCLA Law School. She specialized in researching, writing about, lecturing on, and teaching corporate law, securities and derivatives regulation, law and economics, business ethics, and prosocial behavior in relation to the law. She died on April 16, 2018, at the age of 60 following a long struggle with cancer.

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