The Most Influential People Across History
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.
List of the most influential people in Law,
#2101
Anne Ferguson
#105405
Overall Influence
1941 - 1998 (57 years)
Anne Ferguson was a Scottish physician, clinical researcher and expert in inflammatory bowel disease. She was considered one of the most distinguished gastroenterologists in Britain. Early life and education Anne Glen was born in Glasgow in 1941. Her parents were Monica and John Glen. She was educated at Notre Dame High School and the University of Glasgow, graduating with a first class honours BSc in physiology in 1961, followed in 1964 with a MB ChB with honours. She won the Brunton Medal for the most distinguished graduate in medicine at the University.
Go to Profile#2102
Henry Winkler
#25867
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Henry Franklin Winkler is an American actor, comedian, author, producer, and director. Widely known as Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli on the American television series Happy Days, Winkler has distinguished himself as a character actor for roles on stage and screen. Winkler's accolades include three Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and two Critics Choice Awards.
Go to Profile#2103
Andreas Roth
#96576
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Andreas Robert Roth is a German lawyer and professor. Biography Roth received his doctorate in 1987 at the University of Münster, he completed his german post-doctorate degree also known as "habilitation" in 1993 at the same university. His habilitation thesis on the fight against crime in major German cities was published in 1997 by the CH Beck publishing house.
Go to Profile#2104
Anita Bernstein
#106774
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Anita Nancy Bernstein is an American tort law scholar, with expertise in feminist jurisprudence and legal ethics. She is the Anita and Stuart Subotnick Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School. Biography Bernstein graduated from Queens College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School. She served as an article and book review editor of the Yale Law Journal.
Go to Profile#2105
Sara Bronin
#86240
Overall Influence
Sara Cecilia Bronin is an American lawyer, professor, and architect. She is the chair of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. Early life and education Bronin graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 2001, where she earned degrees in architecture and the Plan II honors program. She attended Magdalen College, Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship. While there, she co-founded the Oxonian Review and served as its publisher. In 2003, she graduated with a master's degree in economic and social history. She earned a Truman Scholarship for public service, which she used for law school. ...
Go to Profile#2106
Larry Farmer
#97301
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
Larry Farmer is a professor of law at the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He is also noted for pioneering the method of document assembly. Career Farmer has a bachelor's degree from the University of Washington. He received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Brigham Young University in 1975. He is an expert in legal counseling. He has been a member of the Clark Law School faculty since 1974 and has also been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School.
Go to Profile#2107
David J. Kramer
#21544
Overall Influence
David J. Kramer was United States Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor from 2008 to 2009. He was President of Freedom House from October 2010 to November 2014, and later worked at the McCain Institute. Following a professorship at the Florida International University, he became executive director of the George W. Bush Institute.
Go to Profile#2108
Richard D. Schwartz
#86142
Overall Influence
1925 - 2017 (92 years)
Richard Derecktor Schwartz was an American lawyer, focusing in natural law, administrative law, and the impact of welfare reform. He was the Ernest I. White Professor Emeritus at Syracuse University College of Law and formerly Dean and Professor at State University of New York at Buffalo and an Elected Fellow of the American Political and Social Science Society. He also co-founded the Law and Society Association and in 1981 the Syracuse-Area Middle East Dialogue Group.
Go to Profile#2109
Eric L. Muller
#57468
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Eric Leigh Muller is the Dan K. Moore Distinguished Professor in Jurisprudence and Ethics at the University of North Carolina School of Law. He previously taught at the University of Wyoming College of Law and was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Criminal Appeals Division at the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey.
Go to Profile#2110
Juliet Sorensen
#69847
Overall Influence
Juliet Sorensen is a clinical professor of law at Northwestern University School of Law. She directs the Northwestern Access to Health Project, an interdisciplinary global health program. Early life Born to Theodore C. Sorensen, former special counsel to President John F. Kennedy, and Gillian M. Sorensen of the United Nations Foundation, Sorensen graduated from Princeton University and Columbia Law School.
Go to Profile#2111
John Atta Mills
#39691
Overall Influence
1944 - 2012 (68 years)
John Evans Fiifi Atta Mills was a Ghanaian politician and legal scholar who served as President of Ghana from 2009 until his death in 2012. He was inaugurated on 7 January 2009, having defeated the governing party candidate Nana Akufo-Addo in the 2008 Ghanaian presidential election. He was previously the Vice-President from 1997 to 2001 under President Jerry Rawlings, and he contested unsuccessfully in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections as the candidate of the National Democratic Congress . He was the first Ghanaian head of state to die in office.
Go to Profile#2112
Ian Freckelton
#95842
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Ian Freckelton is an Australian barrister, judge , international academic, and high-profile legal scholar and jurist. He is known for his extensive writing and speaking in more than 30 countries on issues related to health law, expert evidence, criminal law, tort law, therapeutic jurisprudence and research integrity. Freckelton is a member of the Victorian Bar Association, the Tasmanian Bar Association, and the Northern Territory Bar Association in Australia.
Go to Profile#2113
Anindya Dutta
#101605
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Anindya Dutta is an Indian-born American biochemist and cancer researcher, a Chair of the Department of Genetics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine since 2021, who has served as Chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in 2011–2021. Dutta's research has focused on the mammalian cell cycle with an emphasis on DNA replication and repair and on noncoding RNAs. He is particularly interested in how de-regulation of these processes promote cancer progression. For his accomplishments he has been elected...
Go to Profile#2114
Manuel Olivencia
#45265
Overall Influence
1929 - 2018 (89 years)
Manuel Olivencia Ruiz was a Spanish lawyer with a career as a professor, economist, and diplomat. He worked at the University of Seville and organized Seville Expo '92. Early life Olivencia was born in Ronda, Province of Málaga, on 25 July 1929 and grew up in Ceuta. Olivencia's father was also a lawyer. His brother was Francisco Olivencia. Olivencia graduated cum laude from the University of Bologna in 1953.
Go to Profile#2115
Vittorio Gassman
#38682
Overall Influence
1922 - 2000 (78 years)
Vittorio Gassman , popularly known as , was an Italian actor, director, and screenwriter. He is considered one of the greatest Italian actors, whose career includes both important productions as well as dozens of divertissements.
Go to Profile#2116
Antony Nicholas Allott
#96954
Overall Influence
1924 - 2002 (78 years)
Antony Nicholas Allott was an English academic, Professor of African Law at the University of London. He was educated at Downside School and New College, Oxford. He was appointed lecturer in African law at SOAS in 1948, and was Professor in African Law at the University of London from 1964 to 1986. He was director of Japanese company 'University Consultants' from 1990. He was a Catholic.
Go to Profile#2117
Edward L. Kimball
#52665
Overall Influence
1930 - 2016 (86 years)
Edward Lawrence Kimball was an American scholar, lawyer, and historian who was a law professor at Brigham Young University . Kimball was the son of Spencer W. Kimball, a president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , and his wife, Camilla Eyring Kimball, and wrote notable biographies of his father. Mormon historians have described these as "well crafted" biographies.
Go to Profile#2118
David Hare
#27412
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Sir David Rippon Hare is an English playwright, screenwriter and theatre and film director. Best known for his stage work, Hare has also enjoyed great success with films, receiving two Academy Award nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay for writing The Hours in 2002, based on the novel written by Michael Cunningham, and The Reader in 2008, based on the novel of the same name written by Bernhard Schlink.
Go to Profile#2119
Johan Frederik Holleman
#56373
Overall Influence
1915 - 2001 (86 years)
Johan 'Hans' Frederik Holleman was a Dutch and South African professor, ethnologist, and legal scholar, best known for his research into the indigenous legal systems of Southern Africa. During his life he published twenty books, including five works of fiction. He also published works using the pseudonyms 'Jacobus van der Blaeswindt' and 'Holmer Johanssen'. He is also known for his photography.
Go to Profile#2120
Marie-Claire Foblets
#55054
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Marie-Claire, Baroness Foblets is a Belgian lawyer and anthropologist, who is currently Director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology and Professor at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Her research interests are interculturalism, migration and minorities.
Go to Profile#2121
Raymond Lisle
#59748
Overall Influence
1910 - 1994 (84 years)
Raymond Everett Lisle was an American attorney, officer in the United States Foreign Service, and Dean of Brooklyn Law School. Biography Lisle attended CCNY , Columbia University , and New York University Law School . He was in the US Navy, where he was a lieutenant commander, from 1941-45.
Go to Profile#2122
Roland Koch
#43861
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Roland Koch is a German jurist and former conservative politician of the Christian Democratic Union . He was the 7th Minister President of Hesse from 7 April 1999, immediately becoming the 53rd President of the Bundesrat, completing the term begun by his predecessor as Minister President, Hans Eichel, until his resignation on 31 August 2010. During his time in office, Koch was widely regarded as one of Chancellor Angela Merkel's main rivals within the CDU.
Go to Profile#2123
Jacob Rooksby
#96417
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (42 years)
Jacob Rooksby is the dean of the Gonzaga University School of Law, assuming the role in 2018. He previously served as an associate dean of administration and associate professor of law at Duquesne University School of Law in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Rooskby also worked in the private sector before entering academia, as an attorney at McGuireWoods, LLP and Cohen & Grigsby.
Go to Profile#2124
Margaret E. Curran
#70535
Overall Influence
Margaret E. "Meg" Curran served as United States Attorney for Rhode Island from 1998 to 2003. The most notable case during Curran's tenure was the prosecution of the Operation Plunder Dome, which led to the conviction of Providence mayor Buddy Cianci on conspiracy charges. Curran, who was one of only 12 U.S. Attorneys appointed by President Bill Clinton to keep their posts after the election of George W. Bush, stepped down in 2003 because she has multiple sclerosis.
Go to Profile#2125
Harlon L. Dalton
#80875
Overall Influence
Harlon Dalton is Professor of Law at Yale Law School and an ordained minister in the Episcopal church. Professor Dalton, a progressive liberal, received his A.B. from Harvard and his J.D. from Yale. The main focus of Dalton's career has been on the interplays between law, theology, and psychology. He is particularly interested in race issues and civil liberties. In his 1995 book of essays, Racial Healing, Dalton argues that there is still much that needs to be done to eliminate racial friction and make for a truly equal society. He touches on more than just race, declaring that the possibil...
Go to Profile#2126
Obrad Stanojević
#97248
Overall Influence
1934 - 2011 (77 years)
Obrad Stanojević was an emeritus professor and former dean of the University of Belgrade's Law School, Serbia. He was a renowned expert in Roman law, comparative law, civil law and international law, and has written extensively in these fields. Stanojević was a member of the international advisory board of the Loyola University New Orleans College of Law and has been associated with this law school since 1990, when he visited it as a Fulbright Scholar. He has also taught at the Loyola College of Law as a visiting professor from 1994 to 1996, and he has taught in Loyola's summer programs in Hungary, Mexico, and Russia.
Go to Profile#2127
Jean d'Aspremont
#75708
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (46 years)
Jean Marie Gobert Count d'Aspremont Lynden is a lawyer and professor of international legal theory at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, at Sciences Po in Paris and at the University of Manchester.
Go to Profile#2128
Edward Andersson
#114806
Overall Influence
1933 - 2012 (79 years)
Edward Andersson was a Finnish legal scholar. He took his doctoral degree in 1963 and was a professor in public law at the University of Helsinki from 1965 to 1998. Becoming an expert on tax law in particular, he also served as prorector from 1971 to 1983. He was a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters from 1988.
Go to Profile#2129
John E. Cribbet
#70395
Overall Influence
1918 - 2009 (91 years)
John Edward Cribbet was a well-known legal scholar, dean of the University of Illinois College of Law, and chancellor of the University of Illinois. Biography Cribbet was born in Findlay, Illinois, just outside Decatur. His mother raised him after his father died from the Spanish flu. Cribbet received his undergraduate degree from Illinois Wesleyan University. There, he met his wife Betty Smith. After graduation, Cribbet joined the Army for World War II. He served as an aide-de-camp for Lt. Gen. Troy H. Middleton on the European front. His service produced a number of medals and stories,...
Go to Profile#2130
Adrienne Stone
#100091
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Adrienne Stone is an Australian legal academic specialising in the areas of constitutional law and constitutional theory, with particular expertise in freedom of expression. Academic career As of 2020, Stone is a Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor at the University of Melbourne. She holds a Chair at Melbourne Law School, and is a director at the school's Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies.
Go to Profile#2131
Susan Owens
#62160
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Susan Owens is an American lawyer who has served as an associate justice of the Washington Supreme Court since 2001. On November 7, 2000, she was elected the seventh woman to serve on the court. She joined the court after serving nineteen years as district court judge in Western Clallam County, where she was the county's senior elected official with five terms. She also served as the Quileute Tribe's chief judge for five years and chief judge of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe for more than six years.
Go to Profile#2132
Michael Byers
#75484
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Michael Byers is a Canadian legal scholar and non-fiction author. Academic background Byers was educated at the University of Saskatchewan, where he received his BA with majors in English literature and political studies. He then studied law at McGill University, achieving his LLB and BCL degrees in 1992. He completed his studies at University of Cambridge, where he received his PhD in international law. Before becoming a professor of political science at University of British Columbia in 2004, he was a research fellow from 1996 until 1999 at University of Oxford, and from 1999 until 2004, he...
Go to Profile#2133
Leo E. Strine Jr.
#93063
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
Leo E. Strine, Jr. is an American attorney and retired judge for the state of Delaware. He served on the Delaware Court of Chancery as vice chancellor from 1998 to 2011 and chancellor from 2011 to 2014, and as the chief justice of the Delaware Supreme Court from 2014 to 2019. Strine has worked in private practice since 2020.
Go to Profile#2134
Karen Alter
#100705
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Karen J. Alter is an American academic, well known for her interdisciplinary work on international law's influence in international and domestic politics. Alter is a figure in comparative international courts and the politics of international regime complexity. Her early work focused on the European Court of Justice, a topic on which she published two books and many articles. Karen Alter is a Guggenheim Fellow, and the winner of a Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin. Alter has a courtesy appointment at Northwestern Law School. Fluent in French, Italian and German, Alter has conduc...
Go to Profile#2135
Bryan Fair
#117713
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Bryan Keith Fair is an American academic; his research has focused on race and constitutional law. Since 2000, he has been the Thomas E. Skinner Professor of Law at the University of Alabama School of Law. He presently serves as the chairman of the board of directors of the Southern Poverty Law Center. He is the author of Notes of a Racial Caste Baby: Colorblindness and the End of Affirmative Action. He completed his undergraduate studies at Duke University, and after studying law at the UCLA School of Law, was admitted to the California Bar in 1986.
Go to Profile#2136
Dennis Karjala
#81021
Overall Influence
1939 - 2017 (78 years)
Dennis S. Karjala was an American intellectual property law professor at Arizona State University. His major interests in teaching and research were primarily in the area of intellectual property, specifically in copyright and its applications in digital technologies. His work in the field of intellectual property was internationally recognized and complemented by his ease in speaking and writing in Japanese.
Go to Profile#2137
Wendy Gordon
#97704
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Wendy J. Gordon is an American lawyer who is currently the William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor at Boston University School of Law. External links Works by Gordon via Google Scholar
Go to Profile#2138
Jil Sander
#2932
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Heidemarie Jiline "Jil" Sander is a German minimalist fashion designer and the founder of the Jil Sander fashion house. Early life and education Heidemarie Jiline Sander was born in Wesselburen, Germany on 27 November 1943.
Go to Profile#2139
Silja Vöneky
#61958
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Silja Vöneky is a German jurist, specializing in international law and philosophy of law. She is a professor of public law, international law, and ethics of law at the University of Freiburg. Life She studied law and philosophy of law at the University of Freiburg, the University of Bonn, the University of Edinburgh, and the University of Heidelberg, completing her judicial clerkship at the Kammergericht in Berlin. Thereafter, Vöneky wrote her dissertation on environmental protection in armed conflicts at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg under Rüdiger Wolfrum.
Go to Profile#2140
Janet McCabe
#50126
Overall Influence
Janet Garvin McCabe is an American attorney and academic who serves as the deputy administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency since April 29, 2021. Education McCabe earned a Bachelor of Arts degree and Juris Doctor from Harvard University.
Go to Profile#2141
Mark Ellis
#65163
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Mark Steven Ellis is an international criminal law expert and the executive director of the International Bar Association. He is the current chair of the UN-created Advisory Panel on Matters Relating to Defence Counsel of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals. He also serves as Chair of the Management Board of the Central and Eastern European Law Initiative Institute.
Go to Profile#2142
Andreas Engert
#118795
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
#2143
Louis M. Brown
#87668
Overall Influence
1909 - 1996 (87 years)
Louis M. Brown was an American attorney and pioneer of the field of preventive law, which focuses on avoiding litigation. Brown was the author of the 1950 textbook Preventive Law and the 1984 book Lawyering Through Life: The Origin of Preventive Law. His philosophy of law is summarized by his statement, "The time to see an attorney is when you're legally healthy -- certainly before the advent of litigation, and prior to the time legal trouble occurs."
Go to Profile#2144
Shafimana Ueitele
#60988
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Shafimana Fikameni Immanuel Ueitele is a Namibian judge of the Supreme Court of Namibia and former Senior Lecturer at the University of Namibia. Biography Ueitele was born in Gobabis, Omaheke Region. He earned his Bachelor of Laws at the University of Zimbabwe, where he studied from 1986 to 1990. He earned a Master of Laws from the University of the West Indies at Cave Hill in Barbados, after studying from 1990 to 1992. Upon the independence of Namibia in 1990, Ueitele was appointed an Electoral Commissioner with the Electoral Commission of Namibia. He was reappointed in 2005. Ueitele also worked for the City of Windhoek, becoming a Strategic Executive.
Go to Profile#2145
Julia Donovan Darlow
#61076
Overall Influence
Julia Donovan Darlow, J.D. is a Michigan attorney and a Regent Emerita of the University of Michigan Board of Regents. Education and career Darlow earned her J.D. in 1971 from Wayne State University School of Law. She had previously earned a B. A. in history from Vassar College in 1963.
Go to Profile#2146
Louis Lowenstein
#51786
Overall Influence
1925 - 2009 (84 years)
Louis Lowenstein was an American attorney. He was a founding partner of Kramer Levin now one of New York City's corporate law firms; president of Supermarkets General, a supermarket conglomerate whose operating subsidiary was known as Pathmark; professor at Columbia University School of Law; and a leading critic of the U.S. financial industry.
Go to Profile#2147
Philip M. Halpern
#74208
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Philip Morgan Halpern is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Education Halpern was born on April 17, 1956, in Derby, Connecticut. He received his Bachelor of Science, magna cum laude, from Fordham University, and his Juris Doctor from Pace University School of Law.
Go to Profile#2148
Peter J. Spiro
#107739
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Peter John Spiro is an American legal scholar whose specialities include international law and U.S. constitutional law. He is a leading expert on dual citizenship. Formerly the Rusk Professor of International Law at the University of Georgia, since 2006 he has been the Charles R. Weiner Professor of Law at Temple University.
Go to Profile#2149
Günter Hirsch
#103132
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Günter Hirsch is a German legal scholar who served as the seventh President of the Federal Court of Justice of Germany from 2000 to 2008. Biography Günter Erhard Hirsch was born in Neuburg an der Donau, the second child of Erhard and Anni Hirsch. After primary school, he attended gymnasium in Neuburg, graduating with his abitur in 1964. From 1964 to 1969, he studied jurisprudence at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. He took his first state exam in 1969, followed by the second one in 1973. During this period, he also worked as a research assistant for the chair of criminal law at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.
Go to Profile#2150
Johanna Gibson
#113643
Overall Influence
Johanna Gibson is Herchel Smith Professor of Intellectual Property Law in the Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary, University of London. Her research centers around intellectual property law, cultural theory, traditional knowledge, animal law and development. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the Queen Mary Journal of Intellectual Property and was the founder of the journal.
Go to Profile