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 …
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List of the most influential people in Law,
#2501
Roderick A. Macdonald
#114363
Overall Influence
1948 - 2014 (66 years)
Roderick Alexander Macdonald was a Canadian legal scholar. He was the 111th president of the Royal Society of Canada between 2009 and 2011. Biography Macdonald was born in Ontario on 6 August 1948. He was educated at York University , Osgoode Hall Law School , the University of Ottawa , and the University of Toronto . He taught at the University of Windsor Faculty of Law between 1975 and 1979 and at the McGill University Faculty of Law from 1979 to his death on 13 June 2014, serving as its dean between 1984 and 1989. Prolific in his research, Macdonald's academic work often embodied unusual formats.
Go to Profile#2502
Chris Carter
#24901
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Christopher Carl Carter is an American television and film producer, director and writer who gained fame in the 1990s as the creator of the Fox science fiction supernatural drama series The X-Files.
Go to Profile#2503
Mark Freiman
#92022
Overall Influence
Mark Freiman is a Canadian attorney and public servant who served as president of the Canadian Jewish Congress from 2009 to 2011. Education Freiman earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Toronto in 1969 and a PhD from Stanford University in 1977. He graduated from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 1983 and was called to the bar in 1985.
Go to Profile#2504
Sheryll Cashin
#91698
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Sheryll D. Cashin is a law professor at Georgetown University Law Center. She was born and raised in Huntsville, Alabama, where her parents were political activists. Her parents' role in the civil rights movement impressed on her the importance of political engagement, and instilled values that still influence her research and discussion.
Go to Profile#2505
Orly Lobel
#84701
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Orly Lobel is an author and Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law. Lobel is one of the nation's foremost legal experts on labor and employment law. She is also one of the nation's top-cited young legal scholars. Along with numerous scholarly articles and dozens of essays for media publications, Lobel has written and published three books for general audiences. Her most recent book, The Equality Machine: Harnessing Digital Technology for a Brighter, More Inclusive Future , was named one of The Economist's Best Books of 2022.
Go to Profile#2506
Enrico di Robilant
#66689
Overall Influence
1924 - 2012 (88 years)
Enrico di Robilant was an Italian philosopher of law. He taught philosophy of law and political philosophy at the University of Turin , where he had been a follower of Norberto Bobbio. He focused his attention on classical liberalism, Canon Law, libertarian legal theory, and the relationship between Catholicism and Law.
Go to Profile#2507
Götz Schulze
#128136
Overall Influence
1964 - 2018 (54 years)
Götz Schulze was a German jurist and judge. Academic life Schulze was born in 1964 in Karlsruhe where he took his Abitur in 1984 at the Max-Planck-Gymnasium . Afterwards he studied philosophy and law at the University of Würzburg, University of Lausanne and the University of Heidelberg . He was a member of the student fraternity Wingolf Chattia zu Würzurg and the Société d’Étudiants Germania Lausanne.
Go to Profile#2508
Asbjørn Kjønstad
#123264
Overall Influence
1943 - 2015 (72 years)
Asbjørn Kjønstad was a Norwegian professor of law. Career He was born in Frol, studied under Anders Bratholm and graduated from the University of Oslo with the cand.jur. degree in 1970. He was a research fellow from 1972 to 1978, and took the dr.juris degree in 1978. He has been a professor at the University of Oslo since 1978. He was a guest scholar at Boston University from 1995 to 1996. As of his sixtieth birthday he had penned 35 books and 130 journal articles within the fields of national insurance law, health law, tort law and constitutional law. He chaired the committees that wrote the Norwegian Official Reports 1977:14, 1986:11, 1990:20, 1995:29, 2000:28 and 2004:3.
Go to Profile#2509
Catharine A. Mackinnon
#139082
Overall Influence
#2510
Dalia Dorner
#86834
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (90 years)
Dalia Dorner is an Israeli-Turkish law professor and former Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel, serving from 1993 to 2004. She was one of the judges in the trial of John Demjanjuk. Biography Dalia Dorner was born in Istanbul, Turkey. Her father, a wood merchant, Levy Greenberg, immigrated there from Odessa. Her family immigrated once again in 1944, this time to Mandatory Palestine, where her father died shortly after. Her mother sent her to a Youth Aliyah boarding school in Nahariya, from which she continued to the Hebrew Reali School in Haifa.
Go to Profile#2511
Alice Palmer
#85347
Overall Influence
1939 - 2023 (84 years)
Alice J. Palmer was an American educator and politician who served as a member of the Illinois Senate. Known as a longtime progressive activist, Palmer represented the state's 13th Senate District from June 6, 1991, until January 8, 1997. At the time, the district spanned an economically diverse area and included the Chicago communities of Hyde Park, South Shore and Englewood.
Go to Profile#2512
Glenda MacQueen
#99705
Overall Influence
1965 - 2020 (55 years)
Glenda Marlene MacQueen was a Canadian medical researcher and medical college professor and administrator. She was vice-dean of the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary from 2012 to 2019.
Go to Profile#2513
Omar Dajani
#111362
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (54 years)
Omar Dajani is a Palestinian-American professor and former member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's Negotiations Support Unit. Dajani was born in Texas in 1970. He received his B.A. from Northwestern University in Illinois and his J.D. from Yale Law School.
Go to Profile#2514
Penny Marshall
#38575
Overall Influence
1943 - 2018 (75 years)
Carole Penny Marshall was an American actress, director and producer. She is known for her role as Laverne DeFazio on the television sitcom Laverne & Shirley , receiving three nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy for her portrayal.
Go to Profile#2515
Ben R. Martin
#139564
Overall Influence
#2516
Vakur Versan
#128652
Overall Influence
1918 - 2011 (93 years)
Vakur Muhlis Versan was a Turkish jurist and professor of administrative law at Istanbul University. He was one of the first legal scholars in modern Turkey. Biography Vakur Versan was born in Istanbul which was the capital of Ottoman Empire. After graduating from English High School for Boys , he was admitted to Istanbul University Faculty of Law and received his LL.B. degree in 1941.
Go to Profile#2517
Robert Q. Marston
#47884
Overall Influence
1923 - 1999 (76 years)
Robert Quarles Marston was an American physician, research scientist, governmental appointee and university administrator. Marston was a native of Virginia, and, after earning his bachelor's, medical and research degreess, he became a research scientist and medical professor. He served as the dean of the University of Mississippi School of Medicine, the director of the National Institutes of Health, and the president of the University of Florida.
Go to Profile#2518
Audrey Ajose
#99840
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (87 years)
Audrey Olatokunbo Ajose is a Nigerian lawyer and writer. She served as her country's ambassador to Scandinavia from 1987 to 1991. Early life and education The daughter of Omoba Oladele Ajose and Beatrice Spencer Roberts. Audrey Ajose was the daughter of a foreign woman married to a Nigerian. She studied journalism at the Regent Polytechnic. She studied and practiced law but still continued to work in broadcasting. She also studied theology and taught theology in the Lutheran church.
Go to Profile#2519
Larry C. Borish
#139824
Overall Influence
#2520
Adam Tomkins
#104477
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Adam Tomkins is a British academic and politician who is the John Millar Professor of Public Law at the University of Glasgow School of Law. A member of the Scottish Conservatives, he was a Member of the Scottish Parliament for the Glasgow region from 2016 to 2021, when he stood down for that year's elections.
Go to Profile#2521
Francesco Parisi
#72543
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Francesco Parisi is a legal scholar and economist, working primarily in the United States and Italy. He is the Oppenheimer Wolff & Donnelly Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School and Distinguished Professor of Economics at the University of Bologna. Parisi specializes in the economic analysis of law. His research uses formal models and technical results in areas from international law to behavioral law and economics to tort law.
Go to Profile#2522
Jason Reitman
#37231
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (47 years)
Jason R. Reitman is a Canadian-American filmmaker. He is best known for directing the films Thank You for Smoking , Juno , Up in the Air , Young Adult and Ghostbusters: Afterlife . He has received one Grammy Award, one Golden Globe and four Academy Award nominations, two of which are for Best Director. Reitman is a dual citizen of Canada and the United States. He is the son of director Ivan Reitman, and known for frequently collaborating with screenwriter Diablo Cody.
Go to Profile#2523
Cheryl Willman
#92500
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Cheryl Lynn Willman is an American cancer researcher and executive director of Mayo Clinic Cancer Programs at the Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center. Early life and education Willman was born on November 5, 1954, in Hartford City, Indiana, but she grew up in Iowa. She was born into a practicing Lutheran family as her grandfather played the church organ while her father worked as a nonordained ministry associate and administrator for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Growing up, Willman attended Bettendorf High School where she served as class vice president and newspaper journalist.
Go to Profile#2524
Roger E. Tourangeau
#140098
Overall Influence
#2525
Ran Hirschl
#106208
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Ran Hirschl is a political scientist and comparative legal scholar. He is the David R. Cameron Distinguished Professor of Law and Politics at the University of Toronto. Previously, he held the Canada Research Chair in Constitutionalism, Democracy and Development at the University of Toronto. He is the author of several major books and over one hundred and fifty articles on constitutional law and its intersection with comparative politics and society. In 2014, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. In 2021, he was awarded the Stein Rokkan Prize for Comparative Social Science ...
Go to Profile#2526
Vladimir Parpura
#100807
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
Vladimir Parpura, MD, PhD is a Croatian-American neurobiologist who is currently a professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Go to Profile#2527
Petra Butler
#108153
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Petra Butler is a New Zealand law academic. She is currently a full professor at the Victoria University of Wellington. Early life and studies Butler grew up in Brunswick, where she attended the Gymnasium Ricarda-Huch-Schule graduating in 1985. Butler studied law at the Julius Maximillian University of Würzburg and the Georg August University of Göttingen where she was a researcher for Professor Dr Erwin Deutsch at the Chair of International Private and Comparative Law.
Go to Profile#2528
Daniel Jutras
#107809
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Daniel Jutras is a Canadian lawyer and academic specializing in civil and comparative law and current rector of the Université de Montréal in Quebec, Canada. Career Jutras became a member of the Barreau du Quebec in 1984. From 1985 to 2020, he taught law at McGill University. During his time at McGill, he became director of the Institute of Comparative Law from 1998 to 2002, served as dean of the McGill Faculty of Law from 2009 to 2016, and held the Wainwright Chair in Civil Law since 2010 to 2020.
Go to Profile#2529
Oliviero Diliberto
#88150
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Oliviero Diliberto is an Italian politician. He has been leader of the Party of Italian Communists. Early life Oliviero Diliberto was born in a family of public servants . His youth is scarred by the untimely death of his father in 1971, after which he had to be a fatherly role for his younger siblings: his sister Ludovica, then eight years old, and his brother Alessio, who was born just two months before. Diliberto becomes involved with politics in 1969 at age 13, when he was in high school. It is a time of turmoil in Italian schools, and young Oliviero quickly rises through the ranks of the student movement during his University studies.
Go to Profile#2530
Hasso Hofmann
#81745
Overall Influence
1934 - 2021 (87 years)
Hasso Hofmann was a German philosopher and jurist. Biography Hofmann studied philosophy and law at Heidelberg University, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, and the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg under professors such as Ernst Forsthoff, Wolfgang Kunkel, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Karl Löwith. After the Staatsexamen, he became a certified lawyer. He taught at the University of Würzburg from 1976 to 1992, when he became a professor at the Humboldt University of Berlin, eventually serving as Vice-President of the university. From 1989 to 1990, he was a fellow at the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study and became a member of the .
Go to Profile#2531
Roman Popadiuk
#30343
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Roman Popadiuk is an American diplomat of Ukrainian descent. Popadiuk served as the first United States Ambassador to Ukraine under George H. W. Bush, from 1992 to 1993. From 2015 until 2017, he was a principal at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP's subsidiary Morgan Lewis Consulting, and prior to 2015 he was the principal at Bingham Consulting. Since late 2018 Popadiuk has been the president of the Diplomacy Center Foundation which oversees the development of the National Museum of American Diplomacy.
Go to Profile#2532
Hélène Ruiz Fabri
#117118
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Hélène Ruiz Fabri is a French jurist and Professor of Law. She was a Director of the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law until it got closed. Education Ruiz Fabri holds advanced degrees in Public Law and Political Science , as well as a Doctorate in Law , each from the University of Bordeaux. In 1989, she received her accreditation to supervise research and, upon passing the concours, was awarded Agrégée des Facultés de Droit in 1990.
Go to Profile#2533
Marc McGinnes
#26525
Overall Influence
J. Marc McGinnes is an environmental leader, lawyer, and educator. He became a public interest environmental lawyer and led the founding of the Community Environmental Council and the Environmental Defense Center .
Go to Profile#2534
Ralph Kasambara
#51767
Overall Influence
Ralph Kasambara is a Malawian lawyer, who served as the Minister of Justice and Attorney General since April 2012. He also served as the former Attorney General under the administration of Bingu wa Mutharika during the early part of the administration. After which he became the legal representative of the then Malawian vice-president, Joyce Banda. Kasambara has been a critic of the administration of Bingu wa Mutharika, being vocal about grounds for impeachment and commenting that "wants to be a dictator". He was jailed in February 2012, after thugs went to his office with petrol bombs in an attempted arson plot, he called the police, together with supporters and restrained the perpetrators.
Go to Profile#2535
Jason Carroll
#119320
Overall Influence
Professor Jason Carroll is a British medical researcher serving as a Senior Group Leader at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, University of Cambridge and Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Azeria Therapeutics. He is a Professor of Molecular Oncology assigned to the Department of Oncology and a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge.
Go to Profile#2536
Betty Mould-Iddrisu
#55705
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Betty Nah-Akuyea Mould-Iddrisu is a Ghanaian lawyer and politician. A member of the National Democratic Congress, she was Minister for Education in Ghana from 2011 to 2012, after serving as Attorney General and Minister for Justice of Ghana from 2009 to 2011. She was the first woman to lead the Attorney General's Office in Ghana. Prior to politics, she had been the Head of Legal and Constitutional Affairs at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London.
Go to Profile#2537
Trea Pipkin
#121035
Overall Influence
John A. “Trea” Pipkin III is a Judge of the Georgia Court of Appeals. Education Pipkin earned his associate degree from Reinhardt College, a bachelor's degree from the University of Georgia, and a J.D. degree from the Georgia State University College of Law.
Go to Profile#2538
Ralph S. Brown
#86892
Overall Influence
1913 - 1998 (85 years)
Ralph Sharp Brown was a law professor at Yale Law School from 1946 to 1983 and an expert on competition, copyright law, government security and individual rights. After his 1983 retirement to emeritus status he taught at New York Law School until 1998. He was co-author, with Benjamin Kaplan of the Harvard Law School, of one of the first casebooks on copyright and unfair competition law. Brown was also a recognized expert in legal rights and issues relating to defamation, privacy, and publicity.
Go to Profile#2539
Ulric Cross
#43481
Overall Influence
1917 - 2013 (96 years)
Philip Louis Ulric Cross was a Trinidadian jurist, diplomat and Royal Air Force navigator, recognised as possibly the most decorated West Indian of World War II. He is credited with helping to prevent some two hundred bombers from being shot down in a raid over Germany in 1943. He subsequently studied law at London's Middle Temple, and went on to fulfil a distinguished international career as a jurist across Africa and within Trinidad and Tobago. He also served as a diplomat for Trinidad and Tobago to the United Kingdom.
Go to Profile#2540
Edwin Busuttil
#103877
Overall Influence
1923 - 2009 (86 years)
Edwin Busuttil was a Maltese politician, son of Paul and Therese Busuttil. He served as Head of Department of Public Law and Criminal Law, as well as Dean of the Faculty of Law and Pro-Rector at the University of Malta.
Go to Profile#2541
Álvaro d'Ors Pérez-Peix
#80473
Overall Influence
1915 - 2004 (89 years)
Álvaro Jordi d'Ors Pérez-Peix was a Spanish scholar of Roman law, currently considered one of the best 20th-century experts on the field; he served as professor at the universities of Santiago de Compostela and Pamplona. He was also theorist of law and political theorist, responsible for development of Traditionalist vision of state and society. Politically he supported the Carlist cause. Though he did not hold any official posts within the organization, he counted among top intellectuals of the movement; he was member of the advisory council of the Carlist claimant.
Go to Profile#2542
John Jackson
#112349
Overall Influence
1932 - 2015 (83 years)
John Howard Jackson was an American legal scholar and educator, expert in international trade law. Biography John H. Jackson was born in Kansas City, Missouri to Howard Clifford and Lucile Jackson. He graduated from Hickman High School in Columbia, Missouri, in 1950. In 1954 he obtained a A.B. from Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. Then, he served two years in the US Army stationed in Japan. In 1959, he earned his LL.B. from the University of Michigan Law School.
Go to Profile#2543
Bonnie Jenkins
#32104
Overall Influence
Bonnie Denise Jenkins is an expert on arms control and nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction and currently serves as the under secretary of state for arms control and international security affairs. During the Obama administration, she was the U.S. Department of State's coordinator for threat reduction programs in the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation.
Go to Profile#2544
W. Arthur Garrity Jr.
#81813
Overall Influence
1920 - 1999 (79 years)
Wendell Arthur Garrity Jr. was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts notable for issuing the 1974 order in Morgan v. Hennigan which mandated that Boston schools be desegregated by means of busing.
Go to Profile#2545
Torkel Opsahl
#79957
Overall Influence
1931 - 1993 (62 years)
Torkel Opsahl was a Norwegian human rights scholar, professor of the University of Oslo since 1965 and head of the board of its Human Rights Institute since 1987. From 1970 to 1984, he was a member of the European Commission of Human Rights. Between 1977 and 1986, he was a member of the UN Human Rights Committee. In 1992-1993 he chaired an independent commission exploring ways forward for Northern Ireland, out of which came the influential book 'A Citizens' Inquiry: the Opsahl Report on Northern Ireland'. Opsahl died from a heart attack at his office in Geneva on 16 September 1993. At the tim...
Go to Profile#2546
Rose-Marie Belle Antoine
#85352
Overall Influence
Professor Rose-Marie Belle Antoine is a Trinidadian academic, attorney-at-law, author and Professor of Labor Law and Offshore Financial Law. She currently serves as the Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the Board for Graduate Studies and Research at The University of the West Indies. She previously served as regional Dean of the Faculty of Law, the first Dean of the Faculty of Law at St. Augustine, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Law at St. Augustine from 2004 to 2009, senior lecturer from 1998-2004, lecturer in the Faculty of Law at Cave Hill from 1991-1998 and temporary lecturer in the Faculty of Law at Cave Hill from 1989-1991.
Go to Profile#2547
Shirley Smith
#96439
Overall Influence
1916 - 2007 (91 years)
Shirley Hilda Stanley Smith was a lawyer from New Zealand. Background Smith was born in 1916 in Wellington, New Zealand, and was the daughter of barrister and judge Sir David Smith. She attended Queen Margaret College and Nga Tawa Diocesan School.
Go to Profile#2548
Robert Dreicer
#141687
Overall Influence
#2549
Jaap de Zwaan
#90357
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Jaap de Zwaan is a Dutch lawyer and legal scholar. Since 1998, he is Professor of the Law of the European Union at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. He was Director of the Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael from 2005 to 2011. From 1979 to 1998, he worked for the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He acted as Agent for the Dutch Government in numerous cases before the Court of Justice of the European Communities in Luxembourg. He was involved in the negotiations on and the drafting of several European treaties, such as the Treaties of Accession of Spain and Portugal t...
Go to Profile#2550
S. Jayakumar
#69876
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
Shunmugam Jayakumar , often known as S. Jayakumar, is a Singaporean former politician, diplomat, lawyer and author who served as Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore between 2004 and 2009. A member of the governing People's Action Party , he was the Member of Parliament for Bedok SMC between 1980 and 1988, the Bedok division of Bedok GRC between 1988 and 1997, and later East Coast GRC between 1997 and 2011.
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