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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Person Name

School

Gender

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Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Law,

#1051

Akira Mikazuki

#41454

Overall Influence

1921 - 2010 (89 years)

was a former justice minister of Japan and Professor Emeritus at Tokyo University. He was a leading figure in civil procedure scholarship. Career Mikazuki was an attorney and law professor. He was a member of the Arbitration Law Study Group who drafted the arbitration law in 1989.

#1052

Barton Thompson

#58880

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Barton "Buzz" Thompson is an American lawyer and academic who focuses on climate, ecosystem services and conservation, freshwater, oceans and sustainable development. Thompson is currently the Robert E. Paradise Professor in Natural Resources Law at Stanford University.

#1053

James Cavallaro

James Cavallaro

#45367

Overall Influence

James Cavallaro is a professor of law and the co-founder and executive director of the University Network for Human Rights. He teaches human rights at Wesleyan University, where he is a director of the Minor in Human Rights Advocacy, as well as the Wesleyan ACTS for Human Rights program. In addition to Wesleyan, Cavallaro frequently teaches at Yale Law School, and the University of California at Los Angeles . He also teaches at Columbia Law School and the University of California Berkeley. Prior to launching the University Network, Cavallaro founded the International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic at the Mills Legal Clinic at Stanford Law School, United States.

#1054

Christian Schwarzenegger

#34175

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Christian Michael Schwarzenegger is a Swiss academic lawyer and professor of criminal law, criminal procedure and criminology at the University of Zurich. Early life and education Schwarzenegger was born 11 November 1959 in Zürich, Switzerland to Austrian-born Gerold Schwarzenegger , a musician who later turned engineer and a Swiss mother. His father was a cousin of Arnold Schwarzenegger who immigrated to Switzerland from Styria in the 1950s.

#1055

Cary Coglianese

Cary Coglianese

#35891

Overall Influence

Cary Coglianese is an American legal scholar who is the Edward B. Shils Professor of Law and professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he is also director of the Penn Program on Regulation.

#1056

Jack Cuzick

#60693

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Jack Martin Cuzick is an American-born British academic, director of the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine in London and head of the Centre for Cancer Prevention. He is the John Snow Professor of Epidemiology at the Wolfson Institute, Queen Mary University of London.

#1057

John H. Herz

#16735

Overall Influence

1908 - 2005 (97 years)

Hans Hermann Herz was an American scholar of international relations and law. He coined the concept of the security dilemma. Early life He was born in Düsseldorf, Germany to Carl and Elizabeth Aschaffenburg Herz. In 1935, he fled Germany because he was Jewish and emigrated to Switzerland where he received a diploma from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva in 1938. In 1938, he emigrated to the United States.

#1058

Jane Stapleton

#47808

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Jane Stapleton is an Australian academic lawyer with a specialism in tort law. She is an Emeritus Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, and was the Master of Christ's College, Cambridge from 2016 to 2022.

#1059

Christopher DeMuth

Christopher DeMuth

#13916

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Christopher C. DeMuth is an American lawyer and a distinguished fellow at the Hudson Institute, as well as director of the National Conservatism conference organized by the Edmund Burke Society. He was the president of the American Enterprise Institute , a conservative think tank, from 1986 to 2008. DeMuth is widely credited with reviving AEI's fortunes after its near-bankruptcy in 1986 and leading the institute to new levels of influence and growth. Before joining AEI, DeMuth worked on regulatory issues in the Ronald Reagan administration.

#1060

Julius Getman

#42411

Overall Influence

1931 - Present (93 years)

Julius Gerson Getman is a professor of law at the University of Texas School of Law, and a noted labor and employment law scholar and labor historian. Education Getman received his bachelor's degree from the City College of New York in 1953. He then attended Harvard Law School, where he received his Bachelor of Laws in 1958 and his master of laws in 1963. He began consulting for various labor and management groups thereafter, and became a noted arbitrator in labor disputes.

#1061

David B. Wilkins

David B. Wilkins

#39475

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

David B. Wilkins is the Lester Kissel Professor of Law and faculty director of the Center on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School. He is a senior research fellow of the American Bar Foundation, the Harvard Law School's vice dean for global initiatives on the legal profession, and a faculty associate of the Harvard University Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics.

#1062

Thilo Marauhn

#50124

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Thilo Marauhn is a German expert on international law. He currently holds the professorship for Public Law and International Law at the Justus Liebig University Giessen and heads the research group “International Law” at the Leibniz Institute Hessische Stiftung Friedens- und Konfliktforschung / Peace Research Institute Frankfurt . Apart from this, he is a researcher at the Asser Institute and recently appointed as the Special Chair Arms Control Law at the University of Amsterdam.

#1063

Roy Goode

#33436

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (91 years)

Sir Royston Miles "Roy" Goode is an academic commercial lawyer in the United Kingdom. He founded the Centre for Commercial Law Studies at Queen Mary, University of London. He was awarded the OBE in 1972 followed by the CBE in 1994 before being knighted for services to academic law in 2000.

#1064

María Emilia Casas

María Emilia Casas

#46352

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

María Emilia Casas Baamonde is a Spanish jurist. She was the country's first woman Professor of Labor and Social Security Law. In 1998, she joined the Constitutional Court of Spain, becoming the youngest member in the history of the institution. In 2004, she was the Constitutional Court's first woman president, and she continued in that role until 2011. During her presidency, progress was made in anti-discrimination and equality law.

#1065

Paul Schiff Berman

#55334

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Paul Schiff Berman is an American lawyer and the Walter S. Cox Professor of Law at The George Washington University School of Law. He has held several other positions at the University including Vice Provost for Online Education and Academic Innovation and Dean of the School of Law.

#1066

Lynn Wardle

#60514

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Lynn D. Wardle is Bruce C. Hafen Professor of Law at the J. Reuben Clark Law School of Brigham Young University . He specializes in family law, constitutional law, and bioethics. Wardle holds the Bruce C. Hafen Professorship at the J. Reuben Clark Law School. He has testified before congressional committees in favor of the Federal Marriage Amendment and the Defense of Marriage Act. In addition to opposing same-sex marriage, Wardle also opposes allowing same-sex couples to adopt children.

#1067

Douglas Frenkel

#46642

Overall Influence

Douglas Norman Frenkel is the Morris Shuster Practice Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Education and personal life Frenkel graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.S. in Economics in 1968, and from the University of Pennsylvania Law School with a J.D. in 1972. He is married to Marlene Weinstein.

#1068

Edward Brooke

#17169

Overall Influence

1919 - 2015 (96 years)

Edward William Brooke III was an American lawyer and politician who represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1967 to 1979. A member of the Republican Party, he was the first African American elected to the United States Senate by popular vote. Prior to serving in the Senate, he served as the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from 1963 until 1967.

#1069

Thor Falkanger

#53158

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (90 years)

Thor Falkanger is a retired Norwegian professor of law. He was born in Bergen as a son of district stipendiary magistrate Aage Thor Falkanger, Sr. and Haldis Brun . He grew up in Flekkefjord, and took the cand.jur. degree at the University of Oslo in 1958. He took the dr.juris degree in 1968 on the thesis Leie av skib. It was printed in the journal Arkiv for Sjørett in 1969, and Falkanger edited this journal from 1970 to 1982. In 1970 he was also appointed professor of jurisprudence at the University of Oslo. He retired in 2004. He has been a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Le...

#1070

Metin Feyzioğlu

#40840

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (55 years)

Metin Feyzioğlu is a Turkish lawyer and a professor of criminal law who served as the 8th president of the Turkish Bars Association between May 2013 and December 2021. He is the grandson of Turhan Feyzioğlu, a former CHP politician and deputy prime minister.

#1071

Scott Horton

#12575

Overall Influence

1901 - Present (123 years)

Scott Horton is an American attorney known for his work in human rights law and the law of armed conflict, as well as emerging markets and international law. He graduated Texas Law School in Austin with a JD and was a partner in a large New York law firm, Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler. He "has advised sovereigns on the pursuit of kleptocratic predecessors." In April 2007, he joined Harper's Magazine as a legal affairs and national security contributor, and he currently authors the No Comment blog at Harper's Online. Horton has also written for The American Lawyer, and The Daily Beast and has been interviewed on Antiwar Radio.

#1072

Bismar Siregar

#59674

Overall Influence

1928 - 2012 (84 years)

Bismar Siregar is a former Judge Supreme Supreme Court. He became Chief Justice in 1984 and resigned in 2000. Educations University of IndonesiaNational College of the State Judiciary, Reno, United States in 1973America Academy of Judicial Education, Tescaloosa, United States in 1973Academy of American and International Law, Dallas, United States in 1980

#1073

Kevin Outterson

#19390

Overall Influence

Kevin Outterson is a lawyer, a professor of law and the N. Neal Pike Scholar in Health and Disability Law at Boston University . He is also the founding executive director and principal investigator of Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator , a global non-profit partnership that supports companies developing new antibiotics, diagnostics, vaccines and other products to address drug-resistant bacterial infections. CARB-X is funded by the United States, United Kingdom and German governments, Wellcome and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2022, CARB-X received a new commitment of funding from BARDA and Wellcome of up to $370 million.

#1074

David C. Baldus

#32999

Overall Influence

1935 - 2011 (76 years)

David Christopher Baldus was a Joseph B. Tye professor of law at the University of Iowa. He held the position from 1969 until his death in 2011. His research focused on law and social science and he conducted extensive research on the death penalty in the United States.

#1075

Roman Herzog

#22766

Overall Influence

1934 - 2017 (83 years)

Roman Herzog was a German politician, judge and legal scholar, who served as the president of Germany from 1994 to 1999. A member of the Christian Democratic Union , he was the first president to be elected after the reunification of Germany. He previously served as a judge of the Federal Constitutional Court, and he was the President of the court 1987–1994. Before his appointment as a judge he was a professor of law. He received the 1997 Charlemagne Prize.

#1076

Gary Hart

#14062

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (88 years)

Gary Warren Hart is an American politician, diplomat, and lawyer. He was the front-runner for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination until he dropped out amid revelations of extramarital affairs. He represented Colorado in the United States Senate from 1975 to 1987.

#1077

Edward B. Foley

#47225

Overall Influence

Edward B. Foley is an American lawyer, law professor, election law scholar, and former Ohio Solicitor General. He is the theorist of the blue shift, a phenomenon in American politics in which in-person votes overstate overall percentage of votes for the Republican Party , while provisional votes, which are counted after election day, tend to overstate overall percentage of votes for the Democratic Party . When the provisional votes are counted after the election, there is often a shift in totals toward the Democrat, or blue, candidate.

#1078

Laura Coates

#18202

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (44 years)

Laura Coates is an American attorney. She has formerly served as a trial attorney for the law firms Faegre & Benson and Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman, and a federal prosecutor for the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. Since 2016, she has served as an analyst for CNN, and became the network's chief legal analyst in 2023.

#1079

Daniel H. Lowenstein

#34074

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Daniel Hays Lowenstein is an emeritus professor at UCLA Law School and an expert in election law. He was appointed by California governor Jerry Brown as the first chairman of the California Fair Political Practices Commission in 1974 and was Jerry Brown's Chief Deputy Secretary of State. He was elected to the National Governing Board of Common Cause in 1979 and has been a board member and a vice president of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights. He is also the co-author of the groundbreaking California Political Reform Act of 1974.

#1080

Christine A. Varney

Christine A. Varney

#25172

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Christine A. Varney is an American antitrust attorney who served as the U.S. assistant attorney general of the Antitrust Division for the Obama Administration and as a Federal Trade commissionerer in the Clinton Administration. Since August 2011, Varney has been a partner of the New York law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore, where she chairs the antitrust department.

#1081

Caspar Weinberger

Caspar Weinberger

#11495

Overall Influence

1917 - 2006 (89 years)

Caspar Willard Weinberger was an American politician and businessman. As a Republican, he served in a variety of state and federal positions for three decades, most notably as Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan from January 1981 to November 1987.

#1082

Florence Roisman

#43067

Overall Influence

Florence Wagman Roisman is the William F. Harvey Professor of Law at Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. She is best known for her work in low-income housing, homelessness, and housing discrimination and segregation. In the fall of 2006, Roisman was the Skelly Wright Fellow at Yale Law School.

#1083

Ze'ev Segal

#22056

Overall Influence

1947 - 2011 (64 years)

Ze'ev Segal was an Israeli lawyer, a professor of law at Tel Aviv University and a legal analyst for the newspaper Haaretz. Segal was born in Mandate Palestine. He served in the Israel Defense Forces as a military correspondent for the Gadna newspaper Bemachane Gadna in 1965–1968. Segal received an LL.M degree from Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1982, he received a doctorate in law from Tel Aviv University. He worked as an assistant to Shimon Peres when he was Minister of Communications and Transport.

#1084

Lisa Bernstein

#50256

Overall Influence

Lisa Bernstein is a lawyer and law professor. She currently serves as the Wilson-Dickinson Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. Her work is in the field of law and economics and she is the co-editor of the textbook Customary Law and Economics.

#1085

Anita Ramasastry

#24644

Overall Influence

Anita Ramasastry is the D. Wayne & Anne Gittinger Professor of Law at the University of Washington School of Law in Seattle and a director of the Shidler Center for Law, Commerce & Technology. She is also a regular columnist for the online legal commentary Writ.

#1086

Anita L. Allen

#17090

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

#1087

Vicki Been

#37914

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Vicki L. Been is an American lawyer, public servant, and professor who served as the Deputy Mayor of New York City for Housing and Economic Development from April 2019 to December 2021. She previously served as commissioner of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development. She is a law professor at the New York University School of Law and has served as director of the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy.

#1088

Margaret Somerville

#17221

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Margaret Anne Ganley Somerville is a Catholic philosopher and professor of bioethics at University of Notre Dame Australia. She was previously Samuel Gale Professor of Law at McGill University. Early life and career Somerville was born in Adelaide, South Australia, and educated at Mercedes College . She received a A.u.A. from the University of Adelaide in 1963, a Bachelor of Law degree and the University Medal from the University of Sydney in 1973, and a D.C.L. from McGill University in 1978.

#1089

John Dundee

#65739

Overall Influence

1921 - 1991 (70 years)

John Wharry Dundee OBE, was an anaesthetist and prolific medical researcher from Ballyclare, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. Biography Early life Dundee was born the eldest son of a farmer, near Ballyclare, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. He was educated at Ballyclare High School, studied medicine at Queen's University Belfast, and undertook postgraduate studies at Liverpool, Oxford and Philadelphia. He graduated with a PhD from Liverpool University in 1957.

#1090

Sepúlveda Pertence

#35066

Overall Influence

1937 - 2023 (86 years)

José Paulo Sepúlveda Pertence was a Brazilian jurist, magistrate, lawyer, and professor. He served as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Federal Court from 1995 to 1997, where he also worked as a Justice from 1989 to 2007. He was a Minister of the Superior Electoral Court from 1990 to 1994 and from 1999 to 2005, having presided over the court twice, during the biennia of 1993/1994 and 2003 to 2005. He was the Attorney General of the Republic from 1985 to 1989; Vice-President of the Brazilian Bar Association from 1977 to 1981; Vice-President of the National Union of Students from 1959 to 1960, and President of the Commission of Public Ethics of the Presidency of the Republic from 2007 to 2012.

#1091

William Ray Forrester

William Ray Forrester

#54536

Overall Influence

1911 - 2001 (90 years)

William Ray Forrester served as the dean of three law schools: Vanderbilt University Law School; Tulane University Law School; and Cornell University Law School. Forrester was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. He earned his B.A. degree from the University of Arkansas and his J.D. degree from the University of Chicago Law School.

#1092

David M. Smolin

David M. Smolin

#16453

Overall Influence

David Mark Smolin is a professor of law at Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, Alabama where he is the Harwell G. Davis Chair in Constitutional Law, director for The Center for Children, Law, and Ethics, former director of the Center for Biotechnology, Law, and Ethics, and faculty advisor for the Law, Science and Technology Society.

#1093

John A. E. Pottow

#50610

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

John Anthony Edwards Pottow is the John Philip Dawson Collegiate Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, specializing in international commercial law, bankruptcy and consumer finance. In addition to scholarship, Pottow is known for pro bono work and has argued pro bono cases before the United States Supreme Court and several United States Courts of Appeals, winning an award for pro bono service. His public service in international trade law includes service on the United States Delegation to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law and the State Department'...

#1094

Makhdoom Ali Khan

#19545

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Makhdoom Ali Khan , is a practising Senior Advocate Supreme Court. Makhdoom Ali Khan is a former Attorney General of Pakistan, former chairman Pakistan Bar Council, former member of the Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan, former board member of the Federal Judicial Academy of Pakistan and a former board member of the Sindh Judicial Academy. He is a serving Member on the Governing Board of the British Pakistan Law Council, an Officer of the Board of the Forum for International Conciliation and Arbitration , a member of the Board of Trustees of the Dubai International Arbitration Centre, a m...

#1095

Verena Madner

#37853

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Verena Madner is an Austrian legal scholar, university professor and constitutional judge. She has been Professor of Public Law at the Department of Socio-Economics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business since 2011. In 2020, she was appointed Vice President of the Austrian Constitutional Court.

#1096

Daniel L. Nagin

#53136

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (54 years)

Daniel L. Nagin is an American law professor. He is Clinical Professor of Law and the Vice Dean for Experiential and Clinical Education at the Harvard Law School. Early life Nagin was born circa 1969. He graduated from Cornell University, where he earned a bachelor's degree. He earned a master's degree from Stanford University, and a JD from the University of Chicago Law School.

#1097

Carol Ruth Silver

#30772

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (86 years)

Carol Ruth Silver is an American lawyer and civil rights activist. She was a Freedom Rider, arrested and incarcerated for 40 days in Mississippi. She was among those on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors allegedly targeted by Dan White in the Moscone–Milk assassinations, but escaped assassination because she was not in her office at the time of the murders.

#1098

David D. Siegel

#52329

Overall Influence

1931 - 2014 (83 years)

David D. Siegel was an American law professor and legal commentator. Education Siegel had a B.A. from Brooklyn College, a J.D. from St. John's University School of Law, and an LL.M. from New York University School of Law.

#1099

Giuliano Amato

#23455

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (86 years)

Giuliano Amato is an Italian politician who twice served as Prime Minister of Italy, first from 1992 to 1993 and again from 2000 to 2001. Upon Arnaldo Forlani's death in July 2023, Amato became the country's earliest-serving Prime Minister.

#1100

James Bopp

#14598

Overall Influence

James Bopp Jr. is an American conservative lawyer. He is most known for his work associated with election laws, anti-abortion model legislation, and campaign finance. Bopp served as deputy attorney general of Indiana from 1973 to 1975. He later served as Indiana's committeeman on the Republican National Committee , and was the RNC's vice chairman from 2008 to 2012.

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