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).

Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …

See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.

Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Law,

#1301

Robert M. O'Neil

#50765

Overall Influence

1934 - 2018 (84 years)

Robert Marchant O'Neil was an American lawyer and educator. A specialist in constitutional law, he served as president of the University of Virginia and created the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, whose director he became . During these years, O'Neil remained associated with the university's law school, where he taught courses in the First Amendment and the Arts, Speech and Press, Church and State, and Free Speech in Cyberspace.

#1302

Matthew C. Stephenson

#62091

Overall Influence

Matthew Caleb Stephenson is the Eli Goldston Professor of Law at Harvard Law School where he teaches he administrative law, legislation and regulation, anti-corruption law and the political economy of public law. His research interests include the application of positive political theory to public law.

#1303

Khiara Bridges

#40108

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (45 years)

Khiara M. Bridges is an American law professor and anthropologist specializing in the intersectionality of race, reproductive justice, and law. She is best known for her book, Reproducing Race: An Ethnography of Pregnancy as a Site of Racialization, in which she argues that race and class largely affect the prenatal, childbirth, and postnatal experiences of women.

#1304

Jeffrey O'Connell

#51215

Overall Influence

1928 - 2013 (85 years)

Jeffrey Thomas O'Connell was an American legal expert, professor, and attorney. In 1965, O'Connell and Harvard Law School professor Robert Keeton co-authored the book Basic Protection for the Traffic Victim: A Blueprint for Reforming Automobile Insurance, which created the theoretical underpinnings of no-fault law. His specialty was product liability, and he wrote numerous books about this, advocating no-fault insurance for automobiles and other products.

#1305

Sigi Feigel

#61147

Overall Influence

1921 - 2004 (83 years)

Sigi Feigel was a Swiss attorney, President and Honorary President of the Israelitische Cultusgemeinde Zürich , and notable for his campaigns against antisemitism and racism. Life and work Feigel was born in Zürich to Russian Jewish immigrants. He received his PhD in jurisprudence at the University of Zürich in 1949. From 1949 to 1977, he was the director of the textile factory inherited by his wife, Evi Heim. The firm was sold in 1977, and from 1983, Feigel worked as an attorney.

#1306

Bill Dodge

#64218

Overall Influence

William S. Dodge is an American legal scholar working as the John D. Ayer Chair in Business Law at the UC Davis School of Law. Early life and education Dodge was born in Nigeria, where his parents were stationed while serving in the Peace Corps. Shortly after he was born, his family returned to the Marin Headlands in Northern California, where Dodge spent the remainder of his childhood. Dodge earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Yale University in 1986 and a Juris Doctor from the Yale Law School in 1991.

#1307

Louis Waller

#50201

Overall Influence

1935 - 2019 (84 years)

Peter Louis Waller was an Australian jurist. He was particularly well known for his work in evidence, medical and criminal law. He was Sir Leo Cussen Professor of Law at Monash University from 1965 until 2000, and thereafter Emeritus Professor. From 1968 to 1970 he was the Dean of the Faculty of Law at Monash University. From 1982 to 1984 he was the Law Reform Commissioner of Victoria. In 1984 he was appointed the Chairman of the Law Reform Commission, and from 1986 to 1992 he served as a part-time Commissioner. He has also served as the chairman of a number of medical and legal organisation...

#1308

Troy A. Paredes

#29438

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (53 years)

Troy A. Paredes served as a Commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from August 1, 2008 to August 3, 2013. Commissioner Paredes was appointed to the SEC by President George W. Bush on June 30, 2008 to replace Paul S. Atkins, a Republican commissioner, who was retiring at the end of his term. Paredes was replaced by Michael Piwowar who was sworn in on August 15, 2013.

#1309

Allan Basbaum

#76757

Overall Influence

Allan Irwin Basbaum is a Canadian-American medical researcher, and professor and chair of the Department of Anatomy at the University of California, San Francisco. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine. and a Fellow of the Royal Society in the United Kingdom. From 2003 to 2012 he was editor-in-chief of Pain, the journal of the International Association for the Study of Pain. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in April 2019.

#1310

Annette Lu

#32807

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Annette Lu Hsiu-lien is a Taiwanese politician. A feminist active in the tangwai movement, she joined the Democratic Progressive Party in 1990, and was elected to the Legislative Yuan in 1992. Subsequently, she served as Taoyuan County Magistrate between 1997 and 2000, and was the Vice President of the Republic of China from 2000 to 2008, under President Chen Shui-bian. Lu announced her intentions to run for the presidency on 6 March 2007, but withdrew to support eventual DPP nominee Frank Hsieh. Lu ran again in 2012, but withdrew for a second time, ceding the nomination to DPP chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen.

#1311

Richard Harold Steinberg

#46609

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Richard Harold Steinberg , is the Jonathan D. Varat Endowed Chair in Law Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law, Professor of Political Science, Director of the Sanela Diana Jenkins Human Rights Project, and Editor-in-Chief of the Human Rights and International Criminal Law Online Forum . He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and the editorial boards of the American Journal of International Law and International Organization. He was formerly Assistant General Counsel to the United States Trade Representative under Josh Bolten in the first Bush administration. His work for t...

#1312

Bruce Frohnen

#35754

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Bruce P. Frohnen is a Professor of Law at Ohio Northern University College of Law, where he teaches courses in Public and Constitutional Law, Jurisprudence, and Legal Profession. Early life He holds a J.D. from Emory University School of Law, where he worked under the late Harold J. Berman, a noted legal historian involved in renewing understanding of the role of religion in the development of the western legal tradition. He also holds a Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University and taught political philosophy for several years before entering law school.

#1313

Christophe Geiger

#62209

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (52 years)

Christophe Geiger is a lecturer in intellectual property law, as well as former Director General of the Centre for International Intellectual Property Studies at the University of Strasbourg.

#1314

John Wolff

#61768

Overall Influence

1906 - 2005 (99 years)

John Wolff served as an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center for 44 years until his death on December 7, 2005 In addition to teaching, he worked for the government and was a consultant on Foreign and International Law in Washington, D.C., and published articles in numerous American and German legal publications. He was a lieutenant colonel in the Judge Advocate General's Corps of the U.S. Army and a deputy to the U.S. representative to the United Nations War Crimes Commission. He also served as an advisor on international and foreign law to the U.S. Department of Ju...

#1315

Jumoke Oduwole

#59051

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Olajumoke Omoniyi Oduwole is a Nigerian jurist and academic. She was appointed the Prince Claus Chair holder from 2013–2015. Early life and education Jumoke Oduwole was born in Lagos State, Nigeria where she completed her primary and secondary education. She graduated from the University of Lagos with a second-class upper LL.B degree in law in 1998 and was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1999. She obtained a LL.M degree with a slant in Commercial law from the Cambridge University, England in 2000 where she was as a DFID-Cambridge Commonwealth Trust scholar. In 2007, Oduwole received a master's d...

#1316

Edgar Bodenheimer

#53349

Overall Influence

1908 - 1991 (83 years)

Edgar Bodenheimer was a German American author and professor of law in the United States. Biography Bodenheimer was born in Berlin in 1908. He was educated in universities of Geneva, Munich, Heidelberg, and Berlin. After receiving his J.U.D. from the University of Heidelberg in 1933, he emigrated to the United States to escape from the Nazis. Without an American legal degree, he began working for the firm of Rosenberg, Goldmark & Colin. He later got his LL.B. from the University of Washington in 1937.

#1317

Margaret Stock

#38372

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Margaret D. Stock is an American politician, immigration attorney, and retired Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army Reserve. She is a recognized expert on immigration law as it applies to U.S. military personnel and veterans.

#1318

Francis Jacobs

#54466

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (85 years)

Sir Francis Geoffrey Jacobs is a British jurist who served as Advocate General at the Court of Justice of the European Communities from October 1988 to January 2006. He was educated at the City of London School, and Christ Church, Oxford, where he read Mods and Greats , and Nuffield College, Oxford, where he read for a DPhil in Law. He practised as a barrister from Fountain Court Chambers in London. Jacobs has served as an official with the Secretariat of the European Commission of Human Rights, Professor of European Law at the University of London and Director of the Centre of European Law for King's College London School of Law.

#1319

Lloyd L. Weinreb

#59789

Overall Influence

1936 - 2021 (85 years)

Lloyd L. Weinreb was an American law professor. Emeritus at Harvard Law School , he was first appointed to the HLS faculty in 1965 and became a full professor in 1968. Biography Weinreb received bachelor's degrees from Dartmouth College and Oxford University before taking his LL.B. from Harvard Law School in 1962. He has spent several semesters as a visiting professor at Fordham Law School.

#1320

Monroe H. Freedman

#38951

Overall Influence

1928 - 2015 (87 years)

Monroe Henry Freedman was a professor of law and the former dean at Hofstra Law School. He lectured at Harvard Law School annually for 30 years, and was a visiting professor at Georgetown Law School from 2007 to 2012. He has been described as "a pioneer in the field of legal ethics" and "one of the nation's leading experts on legal ethics."

#1321

Michael Stolleis

Michael Stolleis

#28374

Overall Influence

1941 - 2021 (80 years)

Michael Stolleis was a German jurist and historian. He was a law professor at Goethe University Frankfurt until 2006 and directed the Max Planck Institut für Europäische Rechtsgeschichte of the Max Planck Society from 1991 to 2009.

#1322

JoAnne A. Epps

#46690

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

JoAnne Adrienne Epps was an American legal scholar and academic. After serving as the executive vice president and provost of Temple University, she was the university's 13th president. She was the first Black woman to be permanently appointed and serve as President of the University.

#1323

Raymond Brescia

#51977

Overall Influence

Raymond H. Brescia is an American law professor. Education and early life Brescia is the son of a salesman and school teacher from Huntington, New York. He graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in Political Philosophy from Fordham University in 1989, where he was the recipient of the University President's Award for Community Service. He received a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 1992. While at Yale, he was part of the team of law students led by then professor Harold Hongju Koh that litigated Sale v. Haitian Centers Council and its related case. As a student, he received the Charles Albom Prize for Appellate Advocacy, and was Student Director of the Allard K.

#1324

Nancy Grace

#30715

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Nancy Ann Grace is an American legal commentator and television journalist. She hosted Nancy Grace, a nightly celebrity news and current affairs show on HLN, from 2005 to 2016, and Court TV's Closing Arguments from 1996 to 2007. She also co-wrote the book Objection!: How High-Priced Defense Attorneys, Celebrity Defendants, and a 24/7 Media Have Hijacked Our Criminal Justice System. Grace was also the arbiter of Swift Justice with Nancy Grace in the syndicated courtroom reality show's first season.

#1325

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa

#19533

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Marcelo Nuno Duarte Rebelo de Sousa is a Portuguese politician and academic. He is the 20th and current president of Portugal, since 9 March 2016. He is a member of the Social Democratic Party, though he suspended his party membership for the duration of his presidency. Rebelo de Sousa has previously served as a government minister, parliamentarian in the Assembly of the Portuguese Republic, legal scholar, journalist, political analyst, law professor, and pundit.

#1326

Bernd Baron von Maydell

#56863

Overall Influence

1934 - 2018 (84 years)

Bernd Baron von Maydell , also Berend F. von Maydell, was a German lawyer and secondary school teacher, who specialised in social law. Life Bernd Baron von Maydell, also Berend F. von Maydell, was born on 19 July 1934 in Tallinn

#1327

Elisabete Weiderpass

#57896

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Elisabete Weiderpass-Vainio is a Brazilian cancer researcher who is Director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a part of the World Health Organization. Her research considers the epidemiology and prevention of cancer.

#1328

Charles J. Hynes

Charles J. Hynes

#20422

Overall Influence

1935 - 2019 (84 years)

Charles Joseph Hynes was an American lawyer and Democratic politician from New York who served as Kings County District Attorney from 1990 to 2013. Early life and education Hynes was born and raised, largely by his mother, Regina Katherine Hynes , in Flatbush, Brooklyn. He was estranged from his father, Harold Hynes. He was baptized Charles Aiken Hynes, but "since I was not fond of either of my given names, I chose Joe as my confirmation name when I was twelve."

#1329

Kevin Gutzman

#41005

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Kevin R. Constantine Gutzman is an American constitutional scholar and historian. He is Professor of History at Western Connecticut State University. Biography Gutzman holds a B.A. from the University of Texas ; a J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law , a Master of Public Affairs from the LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas , and an M.A. and the PhD in history from the University of Virginia.

#1330

Aydın Aybay

#83630

Overall Influence

1929 - 2013 (84 years)

Aydın Aybay was a Turkish professor of law, writer and lawyer. He was one of the founders of the Istanbul University Faculty of Political Sciences, the Maltepe University Faculty of Law and the Cumhuriyet Foundation.

#1331

Mireille Delmas-Marty

Mireille Delmas-Marty

#43582

Overall Influence

1941 - 2022 (81 years)

Mireille Delmas-Marty was a French jurist, honorary professor at the Collège de France, and a member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences. She was a member of numerous legislative and constitutional commissions, such as the member of the Criminal Code Reform Commission, president of the commission "Criminal Justice and Human Rights", coordinator of the Committee of Experts of the European Union on the project "Corpus Juris", and chairman of the Supervisory Committee of the European Anti-Fraud Office. She was also one of the 25 leading figures on the Information and Democracy Commis...

#1332

Cole Durham

#70876

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

W. Cole Durham Jr. is an American educator. He is Brigham Young University Professor of Law and Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies at Brigham Young University's J. Reuben Clark Law School . He is an internationally active specialist in religious freedom law, involved in comparative law scholarship, with a special emphasis on comparative constitutional law. In January 2009, the First Freedom Center granted him the International First Freedom Award, in Richmond, Virginia.

#1333

Neil MacBride

#45329

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Neil Harvey MacBride is an American attorney who is the General Counsel of the Department of the Treasury in the Biden administration. He previously served as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. The U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed MacBride's nomination as U.S. Attorney on September 15, 2009, and he took office three days later. He left office on September 13, 2013.

#1334

Robert Stevens

#60912

Overall Influence

Robert Stevens is the Herbert Smith Freehills Professor of English Private Law at the University of Oxford, a position he took up in 2012. He is the convenor of the Commercial Remedies course on the Bachelor of Civil Law. Previously he was a professor in commercial law at University College, London, a lecturer in law at the University of Oxford and a fellow and tutor in law at Lady Margaret Hall, where he taught from 1994 to 2007. He has published within the following areas: contract law; insolvency law; private international law; restitution; tort; and trust law.

#1335

Susan Bandes

#59534

Overall Influence

Susan Bandes is an American lawyer and the current Centennial Distinguished Professor Emeritus at DePaul University. Bandes is considered one of the 20 most cited law professors in criminal law and procedure.

#1336

Christine M. Durham

#56870

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Christine Meaders Durham is an American lawyer and judge, who served as a justice of the Utah Supreme Court from 1982 to 2017, including service as chief justice from 2002 to 2012. Early life and education Durham is the oldest child of three, and she grew up in Southern California. When she was young, she aspired to be a novelist. Durham's father initially worked for the IRS in Washington, D. C., and in 1960 he became a US Department of the Treasury attaché at the Paris Embassy and the family went to French schools and learned French.

#1337

Smaranda Olarinde

#81816

Overall Influence

Smaranda Olarinde is a Nigerian professor of Law, President of the Nigerian Association of Law Teachers and incumbent Vice chancellor of Afe Babalola University. In 1995, she served as UNICEF's legal researcher for Niger and Oyo State.

#1338

Dennis Shedd

#66739

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Dennis Wayne Shedd is a former United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Background Shedd attended Orangeburg Preparatory Schools in Orangeburg, South Carolina. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Wofford College, his Juris Doctor from the University of South Carolina School of Law and a Master of Laws from the Georgetown University Law Center. He went on to become chief counsel and staff director for the Senate Committee on the Judiciary while in the employ of Senator Strom Thurmond. He moved to South Carolina to practice law in 1988....

#1339

Jennifer Martínez

#62351

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (53 years)

#1340

Judith Freedman

#46711

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Judith Freedman, Lady Freedman , is a British solicitor and academic. Freedman is the Pinsent Masons Professor of Taxation Law and Policy at the University of Oxford and senior research fellow at Worcester College. She was the inaugural professor of taxation law at Oxford from 2001-19. She had previously worked in the corporate tax department of Freshfields before joining the University of Surrey as a lecturer in law in 1980. She then moved to the London School of Economics with a secondment to the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies as senior research fellow in Company and Commercial Law .

#1341

John S. Lowe

#47039

Overall Influence

John S. Lowe is the George W. Hutchison Professor of Energy Law and former Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the Southern Methodist University's Dedman School of Law. He specializes in energy law.

#1342

Kirsten Gillibrand

Kirsten Gillibrand

#21816

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Kirsten Elizabeth Gillibrand is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from New York since 2009. A member of the Democratic Party, she served as member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 2007 to 2009.

#1343

Klaus Hopt

#29984

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

Klaus Jürgen Hopt is a German lawyer and prominent representative of German commercial law. Life In addition to his academic activities, Klaus J. Hopt has also been active and active. From 1981 to 1985 he was a judge at the Oberlandesgericht Stuttgart. From 1995 to 2001 he was a member of the former Takeover Commission; since 2002, he has been a member of the Takeover Board, which has been replaced by the Takeover Board, pursuant to § 5 of the German Securities Acquisition and Takeover Act at the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority . Since 2000, Hopt has been a member of the deputy of the German Juristage Day .

#1344

Junichi P. Semitsu

#68033

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (51 years)

Junichi P. Semitsu is a professor of law at the University of San Diego and the exclusive blogger for The Chicks. He co-created the pop culture and politics blog, Poplicks.com, with Oliver Wang. He also previously served as the Director of June Jordan's Poetry for the People at University of California, Berkeley. He also appeared as a contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? on January 11 and 14, 2008.

#1345

Jeremy Phillips

#71541

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Jeremy Phillips is a retired British academic, author, editor, publisher, and commentator in intellectual property law. In 2007, he was reported to be "a respected IP academic" and "a well-known figure among IP lawyers."

#1346

Mary Christina Wood

#75445

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Mary Christina Wood is an Oregon Philip H. Knight Professor of Law and author, best known for her writings advocating for the use of the public trust doctrine to compel government action on climate change. Wood originated the approach, called atmospheric trust litigation, "to hold governments worldwide accountable for reducing carbon pollution within their jurisdictions, and her research is being used in cases and petitions brought on behalf of children and youth throughout the United States and in other countries."

#1347

Kathleen M. Boozang

Kathleen M. Boozang

#70122

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Kathleen M. Boozang is dean and professor of law at Seton Hall University School of Law. Boozang joined Seton Hall in 1990 after practicing law for several years. In July 2015, she became the eighth dean of Seton Hall Law.

#1348

Mike Godwin

#38170

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Michael Wayne Godwin is an American attorney and author. He was the first staff counsel of the Electronic Frontier Foundation , and he created the Internet adage Godwin's law and the notion of an Internet meme. From July 2007 to October 2010, he was general counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation. In March 2011, he was elected to the Open Source Initiative board. Godwin has served as a contributing editor of Reason magazine since 1994. In April 2019, he was elected to the Internet Society board. From 2015 to 2020, he was general counsel and director of innovation policy at the R Street Institute.

#1349

Victor Velculescu

Victor Velculescu

#46720

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (54 years)

Victor E. Velculescu is a Professor of Oncology and Co-Director of Cancer Biology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is internationally known for his discoveries in genomics and cancer research.

#1350

Biruta Lewaszkiewicz-Petrykowska

#80905

Overall Influence

1927 - 2022 (95 years)

Biruta Lewaszkiewicz-Petrykowska was a Polish lawyer, Professor of Law, lecturer at the University of Łódź, and judge of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal at rest. Biography In 1949, she graduated from the Faculty of Law of the Jagiellonian University, after which she started working at the University of Łódź. She also completed an attorney apprenticeship and practiced in this profession until 1965. In 1959 she obtained a doctorate in law, in 1967 she obtained her habilitation. In 1975 she became an associate professor, in 1987 she received the academic title of professor.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions