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,

#1601

Jonathan Charney

#89162

Overall Influence

1943 - 2002 (59 years)

Jonathan I. Charney was an American academic, author, lawyer and the Lee S. and Charles A. Spier Professor at Vanderbilt University School of Law in Nashville, Tennessee. He was also co-editor-in-chief of the American Journal of International Law.

#1602

Hans Ankum

#76303

Overall Influence

1930 - 2019 (89 years)

Johan Albert "Hans" Ankum was a Dutch legal scholar. He was professor of Roman law, history of jurisprudence and juridical papyrology at the University of Amsterdam between 1965 and 1995. Career Ankum was born on 23 July 1930 in Amsterdam. At the University of Amsterdam he earned his PhD in Law in 1962 with a dissertation on the history of the . He was researcher on juridical papyrology from 1960 to 1965 at the same university. Between 1965 and 1995 Ankum was professor of Roman law, history of jurisprudence and juridical papyrology.

#1603

Jimmy Gurulé

#63709

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Jimmy Gurulé is an American attorney, academic and government official, who is a professor at Notre Dame Law School, teaching criminal law courses. He was the first Hispanic Assistant Attorney General in the United States.

#1604

Martin Redish

#66808

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Martin H. Redish is the Louis and Harriet Ancel Professor of Law and Public Policy at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. Redish has written 19 books and over a hundred law review articles in the areas of civil procedure and constitutional law, among others. He is among the most frequently cited American legal scholars.

#1605

Angela E. Oh

#51106

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Angela Eunjin Oh is an American attorney, teacher, and public lecturer best known for her role as spokesperson for the Korean American community after the 1992 Los Angeles riots and her position on President Bill Clinton's One America Initiative.

#1606

Lerke Osterloh

#88454

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Lerke Osterloh is a German judge, jurisprudent and tax law expert. She was sitting Justice of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany in the court's second senate from October 1998 until her retirement in November 2010. Her successor is Monika Hermanns. Along with Gertrude Lübbe-Wolff and Michael Gerhardt, she was considered a member of the senate's left-liberal wing.

#1607

Kenneth Reid

#83894

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Kenneth G C Reid CBE, FBA, FRSE, WS, is a legal scholar and former law commissioner who holds the Chair of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh School of Law. Career Kenneth Reid was educated at the independent Loretto School and St John's College, Cambridge where he studied history, then later at the University of Edinburgh where he studied law. It is here where he first met George Gretton, with whom he would collaborate with extensively during his academic career. After working as a solicitor, he became a lecturer in law at the University of Edinburgh in 1980 where he was subsequently...

#1608

Mark Fenster

#56343

Overall Influence

Mark Fenster is an American legal scholar working as Marshall M. Criser Eminent Scholar Chair in Electronic Communications and Administrative Law at the University of Florida. He is the author of The Transparency Fix: Secrets, Leaks, and Uncontrollable Government Information.

#1609

Carl S. Hawkins

#70923

Overall Influence

1926 - 2010 (84 years)

Carl Stolworthy Hawkins was a prominent American lawyer, law school dean and also a local leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Hawkins was the son of William D. Hawkins and his wife the former Wilma Stolworthy. Hawkins was raised in Provo, Utah and graduated from Provo High School. He then joined the United States Army Air Corps with which he served as a radio operator for the Pacific Theatre of Operations of World War II. On September 11, 1946 Hawkins married Nelma Jean Jones in the Salt Lake Temple.

#1610

Jan Deutsch

#41821

Overall Influence

1935 - 2016 (81 years)

Jan Ginter Deutsch was a Polish-born American philosopher and legal scholar best known for his work on the philosophy of corporate law, jurisprudence, and the cultural underpinnings of capitalist democracy. Deutsch's most recent book, Power and Precedent , is a summation of his work on United States jurisprudence over the past few decades.

#1611

Jim Rossi

#69096

Overall Influence

Jim Rossi is the Judge D.L. Lansden Chair in Law at Vanderbilt University Law School, where he specializes in Energy Law and Administrative Law. His books include Regulatory Bargaining and Public Law , New Frontiers of State Constitutional Law: Dual Enforcement of Norms and Energy, Economics and the Environment .

#1612

Alija Izetbegović

Alija Izetbegović

#17601

Overall Influence

1925 - 2003 (78 years)

Alija Izetbegović was a Bosnian politician, lawyer, Islamic philosopher and author, who in 1992 became the first president of the Presidency of the newly independent Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

#1613

Elsa Kelly

#64535

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (85 years)

Elsa Rosa Diana Kelly is an Argentine lawyer and diplomat. She is currently a judge on the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea as an expert. She held various positions within Argentine diplomacy and served as the ambassador to Italy, Austria and UNESCO.

#1614

Hans-Georg Rammensee

Hans-Georg Rammensee

#33708

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Hans-Georg Rammensee is a German immunologist and cancer researcher. He has been Chair Professor and Head of the Department of Immunology at the University of Tübingen since 1996. Rammensee has contributed essentially to the research fields of MHC biology and tumor immunology and to the development of cancer immunotherapies.

#1615

Larissa Behrendt

Larissa Behrendt

#15826

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (55 years)

Larissa Yasmin Behrendt is an Australian legal academic, writer, filmmaker and Indigenous rights advocate. she is a professor of law and director of research and academic programs at the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research at the University of Technology Sydney, and holds the inaugural Chair in Indigenous Research at UTS.

#1616

Bernard Siegan

#41279

Overall Influence

1924 - 2006 (82 years)

Bernard H. Siegan was a longtime law professor at the University of San Diego School of Law, libertarian legal theorist and a former federal judicial nominee to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The New York Times called Siegan's nomination "one of the most bitterly disputed judicial nominations of the Reagan Era."

#1617

Russell Brown

#34395

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Russell S. Brown is a former puisne justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. He was nominated by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to replace outgoing justice Marshall Rothstein and served in the role starting on August 31, 2015. Prior to his appointment to the Supreme Court, he was a justice at the Alberta Court of Appeal, and before that a law professor at the University of Alberta. He resigned on June 12, 2023, prior to the completion of an investigation by the Canadian Judicial Council into alleged harassment.

#1618

Gregory Shaffer

#59916

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Gregory Shaffer is the Chancellor's Professor of Law at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, and President-Elect of the American Society of International Law. He is known for his work on international law, with a specialization on international trade law, and law and globalization.

#1619

Ayelet Shachar

#34942

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Ayelet Shachar is a legal scholar. She is the Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen. She previously held the Canada Research Chair in Citizenship and Multiculturalism at the University of Toronto.

#1620

Donald B. Ayer

#41799

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Donald Belton Ayer is an American attorney who served as the 24th United States Deputy Attorney General from 1989 to 1990, under President George H. W. Bush. Education and career Ayer graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelor of Arts in History in 1971, with great distinction. In 1973, he graduated from Harvard University with a Master of Arts in American History, and received his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1975. He clerked for Judge Malcolm Richard Wilkey of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, followed by a year with Associate Justice William Rehnquist of the U.S.

#1621

Tania Tetlow

#58395

Overall Influence

Tania Christina Tetlow is an American lawyer and law professor who has served as president of Fordham University since July 1, 2022. Previously, she was president of Loyola University New Orleans. She is the first woman and the first layperson to hold each of those positions at those two Catholic universities.

#1622

Keith Hylton

#78906

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Keith N. Hylton is an American law professor, focusing in antitrust law, economics & law, employment law, intellectual property and torts, currently the William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor of Boston University at Boston University. A prolific scholar widely recognized for his work across a broad spectrum of topics in law and economics, Hylton has published five books and more than 100 articles in numerous law and economics journals. Currently, he serves as President of the American Law and Economics Association.

#1623

Nicolas Warembourg

#39733

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (50 years)

Nicolas Warembourg is a French jurist, professor of Law at the Sorbonne. He specializes in historic, public and constitutional law. He is regularly interviewed. He is the most highly specialized regarding Guy Coquille.

#1624

David Stitchkin Branover

#73680

Overall Influence

1912 - 1997 (85 years)

David Stitchkin Branover was a Chilean attorney and rector of the University of Concepción from 1956 to 1962. Background and education He was born in Santiago, Chile, on October 25, 1912. He attended the Law School of the University of Chile.

#1625

Frederick Gedicks

#69537

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Frederick Mark Gedicks is an expert on religion and law, especially the role of religion in public life. He is a professor of law at the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University . Biography Gedicks received his bachelor's degree in economics from BYU. He then earned his JD from the University of Southern California.

#1626

Kathleen Sullivan

#29752

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Kathleen Sullivan is an American television journalist. She was hired as a news anchor for the newly founded news channel CNN in 1980, when she was 27 years old, and she has also worked for ABC News, CBS News, and The Huffington Post.

#1627

Stephen Ailes

#36336

Overall Influence

1912 - 2001 (89 years)

Stephen Ailes was a prominent member of the District of Columbia Bar and a partner in the firm of Steptoe & Johnson. He served as the United States Under Secretary of the Army from February 9, 1961, to January 28, 1964, and as United States Secretary of the Army from January 28, 1964, to July 1, 1965. He received his undergraduate education at Princeton University, and attended the law school of West Virginia University, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.

#1628

Miloš Jovanović

Miloš Jovanović

#40846

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (48 years)

Miloš Jovanović is a Serbian politician, lawyer, and a political scientist. He has been the president of the New Democratic Party of Serbia, formerly known as the Democratic Party of Serbia, since 2017, previously serving that role in acting capacity from late 2016 until his election as president in 2017. He is a docent at the Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade. Jovanović was a presidential candidate in the 2022 election, in which he placed third with 6% of popular vote.

#1629

Renee Rabinowitz

#28027

Overall Influence

1934 - 2020 (86 years)

Renee Ginsburg Rabinowitz Wagner was an American-Israeli psychologist and lawyer. She was born to an Orthodox Jewish family in Antwerp, Belgium, but fled with her family to the United States in 1941, following the outbreak of World War II, and grew up in New York City. Her parents were Marcus "Max" Charles Ginsburg and Helena "Hella" Zimmet. She had one brother named Herbert "Herbie" Ginsburg. She earned a doctorate in educational psychology at the University of Chicago, and a law degree at Notre Dame University. She taught psychology at Indiana University, and later served as in-house legal counsel at Colorado College.

#1630

Ulrike Müßig

#63751

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

Ulrike Müßig is a German jurist and legal historian as well as Head of the Chair for Civil Law, German and European Legal History at the University of Passau. Life Ulrike Müßig studied law at the University of Würzburg and Cambridge as well as at the University Paris II, Pantheon-Assas as a visiting student. She was promoted by the scholarship program for highly gifted students of the Bavarian Hundhammerstiftung, the German National Academic Foundation and the study abroad scholarship of the DAAD. After the First State Examination in 1993, she received the doctoral scholarship of the Stud...

#1631

Myles Mace

#37010

Overall Influence

1911 - 2000 (89 years)

Myles La Grange Mace was a long-time professor at the Harvard Business School. He was a pioneer in the study of entrepreneurship and corporate governance. Early life Mace was born in Montevideo, Minnesota, son of Jack Mace. He graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1934 and William Mitchell College of Law in 1936. He was admitted to the Minnesota Bar, but decided to further his education at the Harvard Business School, where he received his M.B.A. in 1938. He took a job at HBS after graduation as a research associate before leaving for military service four years later. He left the U.S.

#1632

Stephen Guest

#42189

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Stephen Guest, Barrister and Barrister and Solicitor , is the Professor of Legal Philosophy at the University College London Faculty of Laws. Education Guest obtained his BA in Philosophy and his LLB at the University of Otago, his BLitt at University College, Oxford under Professor Ronald Dworkin, and his Ph.D. at University College London .

#1633

Vern Krishna

#61099

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Vern Krishna, , is a professor of law at the University of Ottawa and of counsel at TaxChambers LLP. He is the author of fourteen texts in tax, international tax, and business law, as well as numerous articles and case comments. His writings are frequently cited by the Supreme Court of Canada and the Tax Court of Canada.

#1634

Judith Richards Hope

#55919

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

Judith Richards Hope is a lawyer, law professor, and corporate director. For a number of years, she served as Distinguished Visitor from Practice at Georgetown University Law Center. She is the president and CEO of a small international consulting firm, Hope & Company, P.C. She is the former daughter-in-law of Bob Hope.

#1635

Robert Heuston

#83204

Overall Influence

1923 - 1995 (72 years)

Robert Francis Vere Heuston, QC , FBA , sometimes given as R. F. V. Heuston, was an Irish legal scholar and legal historian. He is best known for his Lives of the Lord Chancellors. Heuston was born in Dublin, the eldest son of Vere Douglas Heuston, general manager of the Guinness Brewery, and of Dorothy Helen Heuston, née Coulter. He was related to the Irish nationalist Robert Emmet. He was educated at St Columba's College, Dublin and Trinity College Dublin, where he read Law and obtained first-class honours. He was also auditor of the College Historical Society.

#1636

Jaromír Tauchen

#63660

Overall Influence

1981 - Present (43 years)

Jaromír Tauchen is a Czech lawyer, law-historian, certified judiciary interpreter and translator and lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Masaryk University, Brno. His researches are mainly aimed at German legal history, especially the era of the Third Reich in Germany, in the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia and history of Germans in the Czech lands.

#1637

Zhenis Kembayev

#64094

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (49 years)

Zhenis Kembayev is a professor of law at the KIMEP University, Almaty, Kazakhstan. Education He graduated with honors from the Al-Farabi Kazakh National University in 1997. The same year he was awarded a scholarship of the German Academic Exchange Service for one-year academic study in Germany. In 1998, he obtained a Master of Law degree from the University of Hamburg and in 2002, a Ph.D. degree in law from the Al-Farabi Kazakh National University.

#1638

Jack Bogdanski

#81575

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

John A. Bogdanski is an American lawyer and academic. He is currently a professor of law and the Douglas K. Newell Faculty Scholar at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, United States. Career Bogdanski is a native of Newark, New Jersey. He graduated summa cum laude with a degree in Classical Languages and Literature from Saint Peter's College, New Jersey in 1975. He received his Juris Doctor degree in 1978 from Stanford Law School, where he was an editor of the Stanford Law Review and a member of the honor society The Order of the Coif. In 1978–79, he served as a law clerk to judge Alfred T.

#1639

Gary P. Naftalis

#74550

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

Gary P. Naftalis is an American trial lawyer, and head of the litigation department and co-chair of Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP, a New York City law firm. Education Naftalis graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Rutgers University , earned a master's degree in history at Brown University , and graduated from Columbia Law School , where he was an editor on the Columbia Law Review.

#1640

Anne Hellum

#53418

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Anne Hellum is a Norwegian jurist. She is Professor of Public Law at the Department of Public and International Law at the University of Oslo Faculty of Law. Her main areas of expertise are anti-discrimination and equality law, women's law, human rights and international development, sociology of law and African legal issues. Since 2000, she is also director of the Institute of Women's Law, which is part of the Department of Public and International Law.

#1641

Nancy Duff Campbell

Nancy Duff Campbell

#60728

Overall Influence

For the British poet, non-fiction writer, and publisher of artist's books, see Nancy Campbell. Nancy Duff Campbell is an American lawyer and a founder and co-president of the National Women's Law Center. Campbell has focused on women's law and public policy issues and has participated in the development of legislative initiatives and litigation regarding women's rights, emphasizing issues affecting low‑income women, and has authored articles on women's legal issues.

#1642

Frances Moore Lappé

Frances Moore Lappé

#7180

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Frances Moore Lappé is an American researcher and author in the field of food and democracy policy. She is the author of 20 books including the 2.5-million-copy selling 1971 book Diet for a Small Planet, which the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History describes as "one of the most influential political tracts of the times." She has co-founded three organizations that explore the roots of hunger, poverty, and environmental crises, as well as solutions emerging worldwide through what she calls "living democracy". Her latest work is a report entitled Crisis of Trust: How Can Democracies Protect Against Dangerous Lies? with Max Boland and Rachel Madison.

#1643

Dennis Crouch

#57685

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (49 years)

Dennis David Crouch is an American patent attorney who worked for McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP in Chicago, Illinois, until 2007. In 2007, he accepted a post of associate professor at the University of Missouri School of Law in Columbia, Missouri.

#1644

Ty Cobb

#47883

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Ty Cobb is an American lawyer. He was an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland in 1981–86. He has been a partner at Hogan Lovells in Washington, D.C. From July 2017 until May 2018, he was a member of the Trump administration legal team.

#1645

Ronan Deazley

#68066

Overall Influence

Ronan Deazley is a British legal scholar, academic and author. He took his LLB and PhD from Queen's University Belfast. His current specialism and research interests are in the theory of copyright law . He is a member of the Oral History Society and the Regional Coordinator for Northern Ireland. He is on the editorial board of the European Journal of Law and Technology .

#1646

Frans Alphons Maria Alting von Geusau

Frans Alphons Maria Alting von Geusau

#69243

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (91 years)

Frans Alphons Maria Alting von Geusau is a Dutch legal scholar and diplomat. He has a law degree from the University of Leiden and attended the College of Europe 1958-1959. He earned a doctorate in 1962, and founded the Dutch program of youth volunteers the following year.

#1647

Arseniy Yatsenyuk

#29602

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (50 years)

Arseniy Petrovych Yatsenyuk is a Ukrainian politician, economist and lawyer who served as Prime Minister of Ukraine twice – from 27 February 2014 to 27 November 2014 and from 27 November 2014 to 14 April 2016.

#1648

Gunther Eysenbach

Gunther Eysenbach

#20018

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (57 years)

Gunther Eysenbach is a German-Canadian researcher on healthcare, especially health policy, eHealth, and consumer health informatics. Career Eysenbach was born on 22 March 1967 in West Berlin, West Germany. While a medical student, he served on the executive board as elected communication director, later as vice-president of the European Medical Students' Association. He received an M.D. from the University of Freiburg and a Master of Public Health from Harvard School of Public Health. From 1999 to 2002 he founded and headed a research unit on cybermedicine and ehealth at the University of Heidelberg and organized and chaired the World Congress on Internet in Medicine.

#1649

Amy Totenberg

#46227

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Amy Mil Totenberg is a Senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. She previously worked in private practice in Atlanta and also formerly served as a Special master for the United States District Court for the District of Maryland.

#1650

Muiz Banire

#54961

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Muiz Adeyemi Banire is a Nigerian lawyer and activist. Banire formed the United Action For Change which serves as a pressure group and think tank with the drive to build a society where people are valued and treated equally, enjoy their rights as full citizens.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions