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.

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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,

#1351

Kent Greenfield

Kent Greenfield

#39661

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Kent Greenfield is an American lawyer, Professor of Law and Law Fund Research Scholar at Boston College, and frequent commentator to The Huffington Post. He is the author of The Myth of Choice: Personal Responsibility in a World of Limits and The Failure of Corporate Law: Fundamental Flaws and Progressive Possibilities, published by University of Chicago Press in 2006, and scholarly articles. He is best known for his "stakeholder" critique of the conventional legal doctrine and theory of corporate law, and for his leadership in a legal battle between law schools and the Pentagon over free sp...

#1352

Baher Azmy

#46976

Overall Influence

Baher Azmy is an American lawyer and professor of law at Seton Hall University, specializing in constitutional law. Education Azmy received his Juris Doctor from New York University School of Law, an MPA from Columbia University, and a BA from University of Pennsylvania.

#1353

Sadik Harchaoui

#62382

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (51 years)

Sadik Harchaoui is a Moroccan-Dutch legal academic. He and his family came to the Netherlands in 1980 and settled in the city of Apeldoorn. After he received a vwo diploma he went to Utrecht University to study law in 1992. He specialised in criminal law and private law and graduated in 1997 with LLM degree. He thereafter worked as a legal civil servant and became a prosecutor in Zwolle-Lelystad in 2000. Aside from these activities, he worked as a researcher at the Willem Pompe Institute of UU. He received a PhD degree for his research concerning traditional conflict solving of the Berber pe...

#1354

John Szarkowski

John Szarkowski

#6070

Overall Influence

1925 - 2007 (82 years)

Thaddeus John Szarkowski was an American photographer, curator, historian, and critic. From 1962 to 1991 Szarkowski was the director of photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art . Early life and career He was born and grew up in the small northern Wisconsin city of Ashland, and became interested in photography at age eleven. In World War II Szarkowski served in the U.S. Army, after which he graduated in 1947 in art history from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He then began his career as a museum photographer at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

#1355

Harris Wofford

#25521

Overall Influence

1926 - 2019 (93 years)

Harris Llewellyn Wofford Jr. was an American attorney, civil rights activist, and Democratic Party politician who represented Pennsylvania in the United States Senate from 1991 to 1995. A noted advocate of national service and volunteering, Wofford was also the fifth president of Bryn Mawr College from 1970 to 1978, served as chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party in 1986 and also as Pennsylvania Secretary of Labor and Industry in the cabinet of Governor Robert P. Casey from 1987 to 1991, and was a surrogate for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. He introduced Obama in Philadel...

#1356

Curtis J. Milhaupt

#46736

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Curtis J. Milhaupt is professor of law at Stanford Law School. From 1999 until January 2018, he was the Parker Professor of Comparative Corporate Law, Fuyo Professor of Japanese Law, and the director of the Center for Japanese Legal Studies at Columbia Law School. He is a leading authority on comparative corporate governance, law and economic development, and the legal systems of East Asia. He is a member of the American Law Institute.

#1357

Celestine McConville

#68944

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Celestine Richards McConville is an American attorney who is a law professor at the Dale E. Fowler School of Law of Chapman University in Orange, California. Her research interests include constitutional and death penalty law.

#1358

Sedfrey Candelaria

Sedfrey Candelaria

#51421

Overall Influence

Sedfrey M. Candelaria, is the former Dean of the Ateneo Law School in Makati, Philippines. Education Candelaria finished elementary and secondary education at Lourdes School of Mandaluyong and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the Ateneo de Manila University. He received his Bachelor of Laws from the Ateneo Law School in 1984. He obtained a Master of Laws from the University of British Columbia in 1986 as a Rotary International Foundation Ambassadorial Scholar. In October 2005, he was conferred a Diplomate in Juridical Science by San Beda College.

#1359

Hans A. Linde

#56266

Overall Influence

1924 - 2020 (96 years)

Hans Arthur Linde was a German Jewish American legal scholar who served as a justice of the Oregon Supreme Court from 1977 to 1990. Born in Berlin, Germany, Justice Linde relocated with his family to Denmark in 1933, and then immigrated to Portland, Oregon, in 1939. After serving in the United States Army during World War II, he received a B.A. from Reed College in 1947 and a J.D. at UC Berkeley School of Law in 1950. Linde served as law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas , as attorney in the Office of the Legal Adviser to the United States Department of State , and as legislative assistant to Oregon Sen.

#1360

Martin Garbus

#15538

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (90 years)

Martin Garbus is an American attorney. He has argued cases throughout the country involving first amendment, constitutional, criminal, copyright, and intellectual property law. He has appeared before the United States Supreme Court, as well as trial and appellate courts throughout the United States in leading First Amendment cases. His cases have established precedents there and in other courts throughout the country. He has argued and written briefs that have been submitted to the United States Supreme Court; a number of which have resulted in changes in the law on a nationwide basis, including one described by Justice William J.

#1361

Lawrence A. Alexander

#65621

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Lawrence A. Alexander is an American lawyer and law professor, focusing on constitutional law, criminal law, and jurisprudence, currently the Warren Distinguished Professor at the University of San Diego School of Law. He has also taught at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, the University of Texas School of Law, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

#1362

Robert S Kerbel

#85332

Overall Influence

#1363

Bob Mackie

#4434

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

Robert Gordon Mackie is an American fashion designer and costumier, best known for his dressing of entertainment icons such as Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, Diahann Carroll, Carol Channing, Cher, Bette Midler, Doris Day, Marlene Dietrich, Barbara Eden, Lola Falana, Farrah Fawcett, Judy Garland, Mitzi Gaynor, Liza Minnelli, Marilyn Monroe, Marie Osmond, Lynn Anderson, Diana Ross, Tina Turner, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, and Barbra Streisand, among others. He was the costume designer for all the performers on The Carol Burnett Show during its entire eleven-year run. For his work, Mackie has received ...

#1364

Daphne Barak-Erez

#60307

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Daphne Barak-Erez is an Israeli law professor. Since May 2012, she serves as a judge in the Supreme Court of Israel. Personal life Daphne Barak-Erez was born in the United States to Israeli parents, and became a citizen by birthright of the United States. The family later returned to Israel, where she was raised. She studied law at Tel Aviv University as part of the Atuda program, earning Bachelor of Laws, Master of Laws, and Doctor of Philosophy degrees, and did postdoctoral research at Harvard University. She served in the Military Advocate General's Office of the Israel Defense Forces, and was discharged from regular service with the rank of captain.

#1365

Johan Froneman

#48837

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Johan Coenraad Froneman, SC is a South African former judge who served as a Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. Early life Froneman grew up in Cathcart and was educated at Grey College, Bloemfontein, Stellenbosch University and the University of South Africa. He obtained his law degree from the University of South Africa in 1977. He did his military service with the Cape Field Artillery. He commenced practice as an advocate in 1980 and took silk in 1990.

#1366

Hilmi M. Zawati

#45182

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Hilmi M. Zawati is an international criminal law and human rights jurist, Professor of Criminal Law, and Chair at the Center for Justice and Accountability . Zawati has been a speaker and author on a number of hotly debated legal issues. He has addressed major academic and professional gatherings in a number of Middle Eastern countries, Africa, Europe, the United States, and in Canada. His current primary teaching and research areas are: International Criminal Law; International Gender Justice System; International Human Rights Law; Islamic Law of Nations ; and International Environmental Law...

#1367

Adolfo Azcuna

#40232

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (85 years)

Adolfo Sevilla Azcuna is a Filipino jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines from 2002 to 2009. He was appointed to the Court by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on October 24, 2002. he was the Chancellor of the Philippine Judicial Academy , having been appointed to that position by the Supreme Court of the Philippines on June 1, 2009. The Court granted the title of “Chancellor Emeritus” upon Ascuna who served until May 31, 2021. He was succeeded by Arturo Brion who served for 2 years and was replaced by Rosmari Carandang as the fourth Chancellor ...

#1368

Janusz Symonides

Janusz Symonides

#44046

Overall Influence

1938 - 2020 (82 years)

Janusz Ignacy Symonides was a Polish jurist, diplomat, and university professor. Biography Symonides graduated from Central School of Foreign Service. He was a law professor at the University of Warsaw, Symonides' publications included focuses on human rights, the law of the sea, public international law, and modern political areas of thought.

#1369

Karl Peters

#62312

Overall Influence

1904 - 1998 (94 years)

Karl Albert Joseph Peters was a German expert in criminal law, criminal pedagogy and miscarriages of justice. He studied legal science in Königsberg, Leipzig and Münster. Peters was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit and the Order of St. Sylvester.

#1370

Gustavo Zagrebelsky

#41248

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Gustavo Zagrebelsky is an Italian judge and constitutionalist. Zagrebelsky was born in San Germano Chisone, brother of Vladimiro Zagrebelsky, judge at the European Court of Human Rights. He was appointed as a judge on Constitutional Court of Italy by the President of Italy on 9 September 1995, swearing on his honour on 13 September 1995. He was elected President of the Italian Constitutional Court on 28 January 2004 and ceased his President office on 13 September 2004.

#1371

Clyde Summers

#50041

Overall Influence

1918 - 2010 (92 years)

Clyde Wilson Summers was an American lawyer and educator who is best known for his work in advocating more democratic procedures in labor unions. He helped write the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 and was highly influential in the field of labor law, authoring more than 150 publications on the issue of union democracy alone. He was considered the nation's leading expert on union democracy. "What Louis Brandeis was to the field of privacy law, Clyde Summers is to the field of union democracy," wrote Widener University School of Law professor Michael J. Goldberg in the summer of 2010.

#1372

Walter Van Gerven

#82618

Overall Influence

1935 - 2015 (80 years)

Walter, Baron Van Gerven was a Belgian lawyer and law professor. He served as Advocate General on the European Court of Justice between 1988 and 1994. He was professor of European law at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.

#1373

Zhou Wei

#82033

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Zhou Wei is a Chinese constitutional law scholar and lawyer, professor at Sichuan University Law School. Zhou was born in Zhongjiang County, Sichuan in 1956. He received his Master of Laws degree from Southwest University of Political Science & Law in 1988, and Doctor of Laws from Wuhan University in 1998.

#1374

Tamara Morshchakova

Tamara Morshchakova

#24378

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (88 years)

Tamara Georgievna Morshchakova is a Soviet and Russian jurist. She worked as a judge in the Russian Constitutional Court. Tamara Morshchakova was a member of the Russian Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights until 2019.

#1375

Charles A. Shanor

#74733

Overall Influence

Charles A. Shanor is a professor of law at Emory University School of Law in Atlanta, Georgia. Shanor attended Rice University, was a Rhodes Scholar, and received bachelor's and master's degrees from Oxford University. He received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Virginia.

#1376

Mirko Vasiljević

Mirko Vasiljević

#75418

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Mirko Vasiljević is a Serbian legal scholar and a professor at the University of Belgrade. He served as the Dean of the Belgrade Faculty of Law from 2004 to 2012. Vasiljević is one of Serbia's foremost experts in corporate law. Vasiljević was also a member of the board of directors of Agrobanka until he was banned by the National Bank of Serbia from participating in any bank management in Serbia in 2011.

#1377

Mary Story

#78721

Overall Influence

Mary Story is Professor of Global Health and Community and Family Medicine, and associate director of Education and Training, Duke Global Health Institute at Duke University. Dr. Story is a leading scholar on child and adolescent nutrition and child obesity prevention.

#1378

Howard Lesnick

#53819

Overall Influence

1931 - 2020 (89 years)

Howard Lesnick was the Jefferson B. Fordham Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Biography Lesnick was born into a Jewish family in New York City to George L. and Sadie Lesnick, the children of immigrants. Lesnick was raised in the Bronx, New York and in Bangor, Pennsylvania.

#1379

Eugene Tan

#55176

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (54 years)

Eugene Tan Kheng Boon is a Singaporean academic who is currently an associate professor of law at the Singapore Management University. Tan served as a Nominated Member of Parliament between 2012 and 2014.

#1380

Stefan Lindskog

#79149

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Börje Stefan Lindskog is a Swedish lawyer. He was appointed Justice of the Supreme Court in 2008. From 2016 until his retirement in 2018, he served as President of the Supreme Court. Born in Norum in Bohuslän, Stefan Lindskog graduated with a bachelor of law degree from Lund University in 1974 and served as law clerk at a district court in 1974–1976. In 1977, he was employed at Wistrand law firm and became an advokat in 1980. Lindskog became a doctor of law at Stockholm University in 1985, docent of private law at Stockholm University in 1987, and was appointed associate professor of insolvency law at Göteborg University in 1989.

#1381

Cyrus Habib

#20851

Overall Influence

1981 - Present (43 years)

Kamyar Cyrus Habib is an American Jesuit, former politician, lawyer, and educator who served as the 16th Lieutenant Governor of Washington from 2017 to 2021. As of the time of his departure from office, he was the first and only Iranian American official to hold statewide elected office in the United States.

#1382

John Warner

#23201

Overall Influence

1927 - 2021 (94 years)

John William Warner III was an American lawyer and politician who served as the United States Secretary of the Navy from 1972 to 1974 and as a five-term Republican U.S. Senator from Virginia from 1979 to 2009. Warner served as Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee from 1999 to 2001, and again from 2003 to 2007. He also served as the Chairman of the Senate Rules Committee from 1995 to 1999.

#1383

Eleanor Swift

#63339

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Eleanor Swift is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. She is best known for her work on the theory of evidence, and additionally teaches civil procedure, the legal profession, and periodic seminars.

#1384

Bob Barr

#25639

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Robert Laurence Barr Jr. is an American attorney and politician. He served as a federal prosecutor and as a U.S. Representative. He represented Georgia's 7th congressional district as a Republican from 1995 to 2003. Barr attained national prominence as one of the leaders of the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. During his time in the House of Representatives, he authored the Defense of Marriage Act, which was later overturned by the Supreme Court in 2013 and repealed by the 117th Congress.

#1385

Peter Calvocoressi

#11095

Overall Influence

1912 - 2010 (98 years)

Peter John Ambrose Calvocoressi was a British lawyer, Liberal politician, historian, and publisher. He served as an intelligence officer at Bletchley Park during World War II. Early years Calvocoressi was born in Karachi, British India , to a family of Greek origins from the island of Chios. His mother, Irene , was descended from one of the founders of Ralli Brothers, who were prominent Greek families of Chios who came to London at the time of the Greek Diaspora. When he was three months old, the family moved to Liverpool, England.

#1386

Eugenio Bulygin

#41327

Overall Influence

1931 - 2021 (90 years)

Eugenio Bulygin, born Yevgeny Viktorovich Bulygin was a Russian Argentine jurist and legal philosopher. During a career that spanned over 60 years covering the second half of the 20th century and the first decades of the 21st century, Bulygin established himself as one of the main representatives of legal positivism in the Latin world.

#1387

Joseph M. McLaughlin

#60424

Overall Influence

1933 - 2013 (80 years)

Joseph Michael McLaughlin was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

#1388

Paul L. Davies

#64529

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Paul Lyndon Davies KC , FBA is Allen & Overy Professor of Corporate Law Emeritus at the University of Oxford, Emeritus Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, Emeritus Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, and Emeritus Professor of Law at the London School of Economics, where he was the Cassel Professor of Commercial Law from 1998 to 2009. He is an honorary Bencher of Gray’s Inn.

#1389

Arthur Kinoy

#42946

Overall Influence

1920 - 2003 (83 years)

Arthur Kinoy , was an American attorney and progressive civil rights leader who helped defend Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. He served as a professor of law at the Rutgers School of Law–Newark from 1964 to 1999. He was one of the founders in 1966 of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City, and successfully argued a number of cases before the Supreme Court of the United States. He also founded the Public Interest Law Center of New Jersey.

#1390

Joellen Riley

#49568

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Joellen Riley is an Australian labour lawyer and academic and, from 2013 to 2018, was the dean of the Sydney Law School. Early life and earlier education Riley attended the University of Sydney, where she earned a B.A. and M.A. in English literature and a Diploma of Education , in order to become a teacher.

#1391

Carl Risch

#48970

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (54 years)

Carl C. Risch is an American lawyer and former government official who served as Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs within the U.S. Department of State, as the acting chief of staff for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services , and as Deputy Director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review within the U.S. Department of Justice. Risch was also a field office director for USCIS at the U.S. embassy in Seoul, South Korea and a Foreign Service Officer with the United States Department of State.

#1392

Ekow Yankah

#56466

Overall Influence

Ekow N. Yankah is an American jurist who is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Law at the University of Michigan. His research considers criminal law, election law and police brutality. Early life and education Yankah earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Michigan. He obtained his Juris Doctor from Columbia Law School in 2000. Yankah was awarded a Marshall Scholarship to study at the University of Oxford, earning a Bachelor of Civil Law at Lincoln College. He held visiting positions at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya and the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. His first faculty...

#1393

Jan Hecker

#45137

Overall Influence

1967 - 2021 (54 years)

Jan Hecker was a German lawyer and diplomat. He was an advisor to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and a judge at the Federal Administrative Court, as well as an adjunct professor at the European University Viadrina. He died shortly after taking office as German ambassador to the People's Republic of China.

#1394

Rianne Letschert

Rianne Letschert

#39741

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (48 years)

Rianne Monique Letschert is a Dutch law scholar. Since November 2021 she has been president of Maastricht University. Previously Letschert was professor of victimology and international law at Tilburg University between March 2011 and September 2016. From September 2016 until 1 February 2022 she was rector of Maastricht University.

#1395

Marcel Berlins

#23843

Overall Influence

1941 - 2019 (78 years)

Marcel Berlins was a French-born lawyer, legal commentator, author, broadcaster and columnist. He was best known for his work in the United Kingdom, writing for British national newspapers The Times and The Guardian, presenting BBC Radio 4's legal programme Law in Action for 16 years, and teaching Media Law at City, University of London.

#1396

José Miguel Vivanco

#33038

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

José Miguel Vivanco Inostroza is a Chilean human rights lawyer, and the former executive director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch. He is now an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

#1397

Margo Schlanger

Margo Schlanger

#49305

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (57 years)

Margo Jane Schlanger is a Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, and the founder and director of the Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. Previously, she was at Washington University School of Law. From 2010 to 2012, while on leave from her professorial position, she served as the presidentially-appointed Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the United States Department of Homeland Security. As the top civil rights official at the Department of Homeland Security, Schlanger led the office that advises department leadership about civil rights and civil libertie...

#1398

Christopher Bracey

#64436

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (54 years)

Christopher Alan Bracey is an American law professor and former litigator who currently serves as the provost and executive vice president for academic affairs of The George Washington University. He is a leading scholar on race, inequality, and the law and is the author of Saviors or Sellouts: The Promise and Peril of Black Conservatism from Booker T. Washington to Condoleezza Rice and co-editor of The Dred Scott Case: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Race and Law .

#1399

John Stephenson

#63823

Overall Influence

1910 - 1998 (88 years)

Sir John Frederick Eustace Stephenson was an English barrister and judge, a Lord Justice of Appeal from 1971 until his retirement in 1985 and a member of the Privy Council. As a Judge of the Court of Appeal he was known as Lord Justice Stephenson.

#1400

Jill R. Horwitz

#61785

Overall Influence

Jill R. Horwitz is Vice Dean of Faculty and Intellectual Life and David Sanders Professor of Law and Medicine at the UCLA School of Law and Associate Director of the Center for Law and Economics at UCLA. Horwitz is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, Reporter at the American Law Institute, Adjunct Professor of Economics at the University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia of Canada, and a member of the Board of Advisors of the New York University National Center on Philanthropy and the Law.

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