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,

#1551

Jerry Kang

#57712

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

Jerry Kang is a South Korean-born American legal scholar and academic administrator. He is a Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law, where he also taught Asian American Studies. Since 2015, he has served as is UCLA's first vice chancellor for equity, diversity, and inclusion.

#1552

Stjepan Mesić

#28406

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (90 years)

Stjepan "Stipe" Mesić is a Croatian lawyer and politician who served as President of Croatia from 2000 to 2010. Before serving two five-year terms as president, he was prime minister of SR Croatia after the first multi-party elections, the last president of the Presidency of Yugoslavia and consequently secretary general of the Non-Aligned Movement , as well as speaker of the Croatian Parliament , a judge in Našice, and mayor of his hometown of Orahovica.

#1553

Rodney Croome

#31131

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Rodney Peter Croome AM is an Australian LGBT rights activist and academic. He worked on the campaign to decriminalise homosexuality in Tasmania, was a founder of Australian Marriage Equality, and currently serves as the spokesperson for the Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group and a spokesperson for LGBT advocacy group Just.Equal.

#1554

Évelyne Pisier

#31134

Overall Influence

1941 - 2017 (76 years)

Évelyne Pisier was a French writer and political scientist. Biography Pisier was born in Hanoi on October 18, 1941. She was the daughter of a French senior civil servant, Georges Pisier , who was a Maurrassien supporter of the Vichy regime and was stationed in Hanoi. Pisier was interned for four years in a Japanese concentration camp after the Japanese invasion of French Indochina. She then moved to Nouméa, where her father was transferred and where her brother Gilles Pisier was born. Her parents subsequently separated, so Évelyne Pisier settled in Nice with her mother and her sister, future actress and director Marie-France Pisier.

#1555

Jack Beatson

#77288

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Sir Jack Beatson, , was a Lord Justice of Appeal from January 2013 to February 2018 when he became a full-time arbitrator at 24 Lincoln's Inn Fields. He was previously a High Court judge in the Queen's Bench Division, a Law Commissioner and Rouse Ball Professor of English Law at the University of Cambridge.

#1556

Robin Feldman

#50662

Overall Influence

Robin Feldman is a law professor, researcher, and author best known for her contributions to intellectual property and health care law. Feldman is the Arthur J. Goldberg Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California, Hastings College of Law Feldman is a widely cited expert on intellectual property and health care law, particularly as it relates to the pharmaceutical industry, drug policy, and drug pricing.

#1557

Stephen Urice

#54241

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Stephen K. Urice is a law professor at the University of Miami School of Law in Coral Gables, Florida. Career Urice's 1981 doctoral dissertation formed the basis of his book, Qasr Kharana in the Transjordan , which presented the findings of his work as director of a Jordanian-American archaeological expedition at that early Islamic site. Urice entered Harvard Law School and graduated with the Class of 1984.

#1558

Gerd Roellecke

#52695

Overall Influence

1927 - 2011 (84 years)

Gerd Roellecke was a German legal scholar, lawyer, philosopher and former professor for public law and philosophy at the University of Mannheim from 1969 to 1999. Moreover, he served as rector at the University of Mannheim between 1982 and 1985.

#1559

Spencer L. Kimball

#62870

Overall Influence

1918 - 2003 (85 years)

Spencer LeVan Kimball was an American lawyer and professor at the University of Utah, the University of Michigan Law School and the University of Chicago. Kimball was the oldest son of Spencer W. Kimball and his wife Camilla Eyring Kimball. He was born in Thatcher, Arizona and raised in Safford, Arizona. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Arizona and then served in the United States navy on the Admiral's staff as a Japanese interpreter during World War II.

#1560

Joan C. Williams

Joan C. Williams

#47514

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Joan C. Williams is an American feminist legal scholar whose work focuses on issues faced by women in the workplace. She currently serves as the Founding Director at the Center for WorkLife Law. Williams is also a Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California, Hastings School Law. Williams also contributes to the Harvard Business Review blog, the Huffington Post, and the Psychology Today blog.

#1561

Saule Omarova

#38204

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Saule Tarikhovna Omarova is a Kazakh-American attorney, academic, and public policy advisor. She was the nominee for comptroller of the currency before her nomination was withdrawn at her request on December 7, 2021.

#1562

David E. Landau

#63619

Overall Influence

David Evan Landau is an American lawyer. He is a professor at Florida State University College of Law. He received his BA, JD, and PhD from Harvard University. International Work Professor Landau's work has been cited by the high courts of several countries, including the Supreme Court of Israel, the Supreme Court of Canada, the Constitutional Court of Colombia, the Constitutional Tribunal of Chile, the Supreme Federal Tribunal of Brazil, and the Supreme Court of Kenya. Professor Landau received a Fulbright specialist grant to Chile in 2022, during that country's ongoing constitution-making process.

#1563

Martin Davies

#93081

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Martin J. Davies is a UK-born professor of maritime law and heads the Maritime Law Center at Tulane University Faculty of Law, New Orleans, where he is the Admiralty Law Institute Professor of Maritime Law. He is a graduate of Oxford University and Harvard University , and serves on the editorial board of Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly. He became a Titulary Member of the Comite Maritime International in 2019. In 2021, he was accepted for the award of the degree of Doctor of Civil Law at the University of Oxford, a degree to be awarded in 2022.

#1564

Arthur Helton

#63685

Overall Influence

1949 - 2003 (54 years)

Arthur Helton was a lawyer, refugee advocate, teacher and author. He died in the 2003 Canal Hotel bombing while he was in Baghdad to assess humanitarian conditions in Iraq. Helton graduated from Columbia College, Columbia University in New York City in 1971 and from New York University School of Law in 1976.

#1565

Jonathan Rothschild

#49262

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Jonathan Rothschild is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 41st mayor of Tucson, Arizona from 2011 to 2019. From 2001 to 2011, Rothschild was managing partner at the law firm Mesch Clark Rothschild.

#1566

Angela J. Davis

#86587

Overall Influence

Angela J. Davis, professor of law at the American University's Washington College of Law, is an expert in criminal law and procedure with a specific focus on prosecutorial power and racism in the criminal justice system. She is the author of Arbitrary Justice: The Power of the American Prosecutor, published in 2009.

#1567

André Marin

#37915

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

André Marin is a lawyer who served as Ontario ombudsman from 2005 to 2015. Personal Marin is a graduate of Carleton University and University of Ottawa . Career After graduating from law school, Marin became an assistant Crown Attorney in Ottawa, Ontario in 1991 and taught law part-time in Ottawa.

#1568

Neil Kaplowitz

#93249

Overall Influence

#1569

Bernd-Christian Funk

#65473

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Bernd-Christian Funk is an Austrian legal scholar and educator. Funk is a former professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law at the University of Vienna, the dean and academic director of the Sigmund Freud University Vienna Faculty of Law, and one of the governors of the Medical University of Innsbruck.

#1570

Sarah Worthington

#56731

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Dame Sarah Elizabeth Worthington, is a British legal scholar, barrister, and Deputy High Court Judge in the Chancery Division, specialising in company law, commercial law, and equity. From 2011 to 2022, she was the Downing Professor of the Laws of England at the University of Cambridge. She is Treasurer of the British Academy and a trustee of the British Museum.

#1571

Rudolph Leibel

#15722

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Rudolph Leibel is the Christopher J. Murphy Professor of Diabetes Research, Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center, and Director of the Division of Molecular Genetics in the Department of Pediatrics. He is also co-director of the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center and executive director of the Russell and Angelica Berrie Program in Cellular Therapy, Co-director of the New York Obesity Research Center and the Columbia University Diabetes and Endocrinology Research Center.

#1572

Tom Mankiewicz

#8477

Overall Influence

1942 - 2010 (68 years)

Thomas Frank Mankiewicz was an American screenwriter, director, and producer of motion pictures and television whose credits included James Bond films and his contributions to Superman: The Movie and the television series Hart to Hart. He was the son of Joseph Mankiewicz and nephew of Herman Mankiewicz.

#1573

Philippe Shubik

#59641

Overall Influence

1921 - 2004 (83 years)

Philippe Shubik was a British born American cancer researcher who founded the organization the Toxicology Forum, which facilitates international discussions on toxicology-related topics. He was also Director of the Eppley Institute for Research in Cancer and Allied Diseases.

#1574

Mel Sta. Maria

#66279

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Melencio Santos Sta. Maria Jr. is a Filipino lawyer, law professor, and television & radio presenter. He has been the dean of Far Eastern University's law school since 2013. He has also been teaching at his alma mater, the Ateneo School of Law, since 1986.

#1575

Hsu Tzong-li

#54880

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Hsu Tzong-li is a Taiwanese judge who has served as the President of the Judicial Yuan since 2016. Academic career Hsu studied at National Taiwan University and later, in 1986, obtained his PhD in law from the University of Göttingen in Germany. Later that year, he began teaching law at Fu Jen Catholic University and moved to NTU in 1987. He was elected dean of NTU's law school in 2002.

#1576

Jan Peter Balkenende

#21113

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Jan Pieter "Jan Peter" Balkenende Jr. is a Dutch politician of the Christian Democratic Appeal party and jurist who served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 22 July 2002 to 14 October 2010.

#1577

Ronald J. Allen

#52935

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Ronald J. Allen is an American lawyer and the John Henry Wigmore Professor of Law at Northwestern University. Education Allen completed his B.S. in 1970 from Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia. He then received his J.D. in 1973 from the University of Michigan Law School.

#1578

Ian Kerr

#60392

Overall Influence

1965 - 2019 (54 years)

Ian R. Kerr was a Canadian academic who researched emerging law and technology issues. He held a Canada Research Chair in Ethics, Law, and Technology at the University of Ottawa. Kerr earned awards and citations, including the Bank of Nova Scotia Award of Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, the University of Western Ontario’s Faculty of Graduate Studies Award of Teaching Excellence, the University of Ottawa’s AEECLSS Teaching Excellence Award, and the University of Ottawa's Excellence in Education Prize.

#1579

Tone Sverdrup

#69567

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Tone Sverdrup is a Norwegian jurist. She was born in Oslo. She took the siv.øk. degree, and also graduated as cand.jur. in 1977. She was a secretary in the Ministry of Local Government and Labour from 1974 to 1975 and as a consultant in the Ministry of Justice and the Police from 1977 to 1978. At the University of Oslo, she was a research assistant from 1975 to 1976, and also worked there from 1979 to 1980. From 1984 to 1986 she had a NAVF scholarship. She became an associate professor at the University of Oslo in 1988, and was promoted to professor in 2000. She took the dr.juris degree in 1997.

#1580

Carlos Peña González

Carlos Peña González

#39442

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Carlos Hernán Peña González is a lawyer and university professor who is since 2005 rector of the Diego Portales University and Sunday columnist of El Mercurio. Peña is also vicepresident of CIPER Chile; member of the directory of Fundación Nicanor Parra; Counsellor of Teatro Municipal de Santiago; member of the directory of Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos and member of the Comisión de Verdad Histórica y Nuevo Trato con los Pueblos Indígenas . He was also a government advisor in the Reforma Procesal Penal and family law .

#1581

Ole Due

#84319

Overall Influence

1931 - 2005 (74 years)

Ole Due was a Danish judge who presided over the European Court of Justice from 1988 to 1994. Career Ole Due started his career at the Danish Ministry of Justice, culminating in his appointment as Director. He was notably involved with the implementation of the European Community acts at the time of the enlargement in 1973 when Denmark, the United Kingdom and Ireland became members of the European Economic Community and was involved in the drawing up of the Treaty of Accession. He became Adviser ad interim to the Østre Landsret in Copenhagen in 1978. Due was also a member of the Danish delegation to The Hague Conference on private international law.

#1582

Jonathan Simon

#39506

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Jonathan Simon is an American academic, the Lance Robbins Professor of Criminal Justice Law, and the former Associate Dean of the Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program at the UC Berkeley School of Law. Simon’s scholarship concerns the role of crime and criminal justice in governing contemporary societies, risk and the law, and the history of the interdisciplinary study of law. His other interests include criminology; penology; sociology; insurance models of governing risk; governance; the origins and consequences of, and solutions to, the California prison "crisis"; parole; prisons; capital ...

#1583

André Donner

#54561

Overall Influence

1918 - 1992 (74 years)

Andreas Matthias Donner was a Dutch judge and the second President of the European Court of Justice, a position which he served between 1958 and 1964. Early life Donner stems from a prominent Dutch Reformed family of jurists. His father Jan Donner and his son Piet Hein Donner were Dutch Minister of Justice, with his son also being the current Dutch Vice President of the Council of State. André Donner's brother Jan Hein Donner was a chess grandmaster.

#1584

Alafair Burke

#49752

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (55 years)

Alafair S. Burke is an American crime novelist, professor of law, and legal commentator. She is a New York Times bestselling author of twenty crime novels, including The Ex, The Wife, and The Better Sister, and two series—one featuring NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher, and the other, Portland, Oregon, prosecutor Samantha Kincaid. Her books have been translated into more than a dozen languages.

#1585

Alexander Wang

#2919

Overall Influence

1983 - Present (41 years)

Alexander Wang is an American fashion designer. Wang launched his eponymous fashion brand in 2005 and came to prominence after being awarded the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund in 2008. He is known for his urban-inspired designs and use of black.

#1586

Anne Orford

#64718

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Anne Orford is a professor of law and an ARC Australian Laureate Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Her main focus of research are in the areas of public international law, history and theory of international law and international economic law.

#1587

John Edgar Dick

John Edgar Dick

#55663

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

John Edgar Dick is Canada Research Chair in Stem Cell Biology, Senior Scientist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network and Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto in Canada. Dick is credited with first identifying cancer stem cells in certain types of human leukemia. His revolutionary findings highlighted the importance of understanding that not all cancer cells are the same and thus spawned a new direction in cancer research. Dick is also known for his demonstration of a blood stem cell's ability to replenish the blood syst...

#1588

Werner Meng

#69894

Overall Influence

1948 - 2016 (68 years)

Werner Meng was a German jurist and Director of the Europa-Institut since 1999 as well as the holder of the Chair of Public Law, International Law and European Law at Saarland University. Career Werner Meng studied Law in Mainz and Lausanne . He obtained his doctorate and his Habilitation at the University of Mainz. He worked as research scholar at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign Public and International Law in Heidelberg from 1980 until 1989 as well as at the University of Michigan, School of Law, Ann Arbor, in 1985. After working as a lawyer in Munich for a few years, he took on the Ch...

#1589

Christian Wulff

#27888

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Christian Wilhelm Walter Wulff is a retired German politician and lawyer who served as President of Germany from 2010 to 2012. A member of the Christian Democratic Union , he previously served as minister president of the state of Lower Saxony from 2003 to 2010. He was elected to the presidency in the 30 June 2010 presidential election, defeating opposition candidate Joachim Gauck and taking office immediately, although he was not sworn in until With the age of 51, he became Germany's youngest president.

#1590

Kevin Jon Heller

#63698

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (57 years)

Kevin Jon Heller is a scholar of international law who is a Professor of International Law & Security at the University of Copenhagen's Centre for Military Studies. He has also taught at the University of Amsterdam, SOAS, University of London, and Melbourne Law School.

#1591

Albert Blaustein

#47598

Overall Influence

1921 - 1994 (73 years)

Albert Paul Blaustein was an American civil rights and human rights lawyer and constitutional consultant who helped draft the Fijian and Liberian constitutions, as well as being called in as a consultant for the constitutions of Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Cambodia and Peru. To a lesser extent, he was involved in the constitutions of Poland, South Africa, Hungary, Romania, Niger, Uganda and Trinidad and Tobago. He was the editor of the 20-volume encyclopaedia Constitutions of the Countries of the World.

#1592

Alexander Van der Bellen

#28128

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Alexander Van der Bellen is the current president of Austria. He previously served as a professor of economics at the University of Vienna, and after joining politics, as the spokesman of the Austrian Green Party.

#1593

Hideroku Hara

#39269

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Hideroku Hara is a Japanese legal scholar and professor emeritus at Shiga University. He was granted the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Law for his study of The Legal Theory on the Distribution of the Synergistic Effects caused by Mergers from Waseda University. His research covers Commercial law, Corporate Law and Securities.

#1594

Eduardo Portella

Eduardo Portella

#70004

Overall Influence

1932 - 2017 (85 years)

Eduardo Portella was a Brazilian essayist, author, and Professor Emeritus at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. He authored thirty books and was President of UNESCO's general conference. Portella died of complications from pneumonia on 2 May 2017 at the age of 84.

#1595

Robert S. Adler

Robert S. Adler

#30252

Overall Influence

Robert S. Adler is a consumer advocate in the United States. He was a member of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, and recently served as its acting chairman from October 2019 to October 2021. He is a Democrat, and became acting chair due to a surprise vote crossing party lines from former acting chair Ann Marie Buerkle.

#1596

Salma Sobhan

#32143

Overall Influence

1937 - 2003 (66 years)

Salma Sobhan was a Bangladeshi lawyer, academic and human rights activist. She became the first woman barrister in Pakistan in 1959. A member of the law faculty of the University of Dhaka, she was a co-founder of Ain-O-Salish Kendra , a national human rights watchdog.

#1597

John N. Hazard

#73014

Overall Influence

1909 - 1995 (86 years)

John Newbold Hazard was a leading American scholar of Soviet law and public administration. Hazard was one of the pioneers in the field of Sovietology, particularly in Soviet law, administration and politics.

#1598

Kim Wehle

#77981

Overall Influence

Kimberly Lynn Wehle is a tenured law professor, writer, and legal contributor for ABC News and a former legal analyst for CBS News. She is an expert in civil procedure, administrative law, and the separation of powers.

#1599

Graham J. Zellick

#60849

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Graham John Zellick is a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of London, serving from 1997–2003 and previously Principal of Queen Mary and Westfield College, London, from 1991–98. Early life The son of R. H. Zellick and B. Sabovinsky, he was educated at Christ's College in Finchley, north London, before going up to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge then Stanford Law School, where he was a Ford Foundation Fellow from 1970–71.

#1600

Steven Ferrey

#72523

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Steven Ferrey is a contracts and environmental law professor at Suffolk University. He is the author of a contract and environmental law book, entitled Aspen, Examples and Explanations. He received his JD from University of California Berkeley and has been a full-time professor since 1989.

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