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,
#2851
Luo Haocai
#148271
Overall Influence
1934 - 2018 (84 years)
Luo Haocai was a Chinese legal scholar, Supreme Court judge, and politician. He served as professor and Vice President of Peking University, Vice President of the Supreme People's Court, Chairman of China Zhi Gong Party , and Vice Chairperson of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference . In the field of administrative law, he proposed the "theory of balance", which has become highly influential in China.
Go to Profile#2852
Akilagpa Sawyerr
#55762
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
George Akilagpa Sawyerr, is a Ghanaian academic. He is a professor in the field of law and has served in various universities in Ghana and abroad. He is a former vice-chancellor of the University of Ghana and also a former president of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Go to Profile#2853
Richard Wilkins
#130911
Overall Influence
1952 - 2012 (60 years)
Richard G. Wilkins was an American lawyer and proponent of a socially conservative view of marriage and the family. He was the Robert W. Barker Professor of Law at the J. Reuben Clark Law School which is part of Brigham Young University until his retirement. He also served as the director of the World Family Policy Center at BYU which was affiliated with the Clark Law School and the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies. He was an assistant to the solicitor general of the United States in the 1980s.
Go to Profile#2854
Victor Fleischer
#71166
Overall Influence
Victor Fleischer is a professor of law at University of California, Irvine School of Law known for raising awareness of the carried interest tax loophole. Biography Fleischer grew up in Buffalo, New York, the son of now retired academics, and earned a B.A. from Columbia College in 1993 and a J.D. from Columbia Law School in 1996. He worked at Davis Polk & Wardwell and clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and Ninth Circuit before entering academia in 2001. He taught at the UCLA School of Law, University of Illinois College of Law, University of Colorado Law School, the U...
Go to Profile#2855
Martin Landray
#86809
Overall Influence
Sir Martin Jonathan Landray is a British physician, epidemiologist and data scientist who serves as a Professor of Medicine & Epidemiology at the University of Oxford. Landray designs, conducts and analyses large-scale randomised control trials; including practice-changing international trials that have recruited over 100,000 individuals. Landray previously led the health informatics team that enabled the collection and management of data for the UK Biobank on over half a million people.
Go to Profile#2856
Josep Joan Moreso
#26172
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Josep Joan Moreso is a Spanish former head of Pompeu Fabra University and professor of philosophy of law. External links Presentation in Universia Personal website
Go to Profile#2857
Mark Berry
#168497
Overall Influence
Mark Berry is a New Zealand lawyer who was the chair of the Commerce Commission of New Zealand between April 2009 and May 2019. Berry was a partner in law firm Bell Gully from 1988 until he resigned to do post-graduate studies at the Columbia Law School where he gained a JSD. He taught Contract Law, Competition Law and Securities Regulation at University of Otago Faculty of Law.
Go to Profile#2858
Henry Holland
#17923
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (41 years)
Henry Holland is an English fashion designer, businessman and blogger from Ramsbottom, Greater Manchester. Early life and education Holland is a graduate of the BA Journalism course at the London College of Communication and has worked for the following publications: the teenage Sneak magazine , Smash Hits and Bliss. He is openly gay.
Go to Profile#2859
Susan M. Rosenberg
#55024
Overall Influence
Susan M. Rosenberg is a cancer research scientist and the Ben F. Love Chair in Cancer Research at Baylor College of Medicine. Her research focuses on the processes of DNA mutations, damage, and repair.
Go to Profile#2860
Sigrid Fry-Revere
#72182
Overall Influence
Sigrid Fry-Revere is an American medical ethicist and lawyer who has worked on many issues in patient care ethics, but most recently has been working on the rights of living organ donors. Background Fry-Revere worked as an attorney, practicing bioethics, health, and U.S. Food and Drug Administration law with the law firm of Arent Fox Kintner Plotkin & Kahn. She worked as an adjunct professor of ethics and healthcare law at George Mason University College of Nursing and Health Science and as an associate professor at the University of Virginia Center for Biomedical Ethics. She formerly served ...
Go to Profile#2861
Raffaele Farina
#19585
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (91 years)
Raffaele Farina SDB is an Italian cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was Archivist of the Vatican Secret Archives, Librarian of the Vatican Library, and president of Scuola Vaticana di Paleografia, Diplomatica e Archivistica. Farina was elevated to the cardinalate in 2007.
Go to Profile#2862
Lim Kean Chye
#114488
Overall Influence
Lim Kean Chye was born on December 22, 1919. He attended University of Cambridge to pursue his law degree. His time in England shaped him politically, and he became a member of Singapore’s first political party: the Malayan Democratic Union. This party was created to demonstrate the need for self-governance and independence from British rule. Lim Kean Chye was a member of the Anti-British League and the Singapore and Malayan Bars. His political views forced him to flee Singapore, and he lived for many years as an exile in China. He was forced to do unpaid translation work for the Chinese government until 1958 when the political situation shifted and he felt safe returning to Singapore.
Go to Profile#2863
Melchior Wathelet
#96502
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Melchior H. M. J. F. C. Wathelet is a Belgian politician and member of the Humanist Democratic Centre who served as 4th Minister-President of Wallonia. He has degrees in law and in economics and is a Master of Laws . He is also a professor at the Catholic University of Louvain and the Université de Liège. From 1995 to 2003 he was a Judge at the European Court of Justice. Following that, Wathelet served as . In 2012-2018, Wathelet served as Advocate-General at the Court of Justice.
Go to Profile#2864
Innocent Umezulike
#121090
Overall Influence
1953 - 2018 (65 years)
Innocent Azubike Umezulike was a Nigerian jurist who served as the chief judge of Enugu State for over 13 years. He remains the longest-serving chief judge in South-Eastern Nigeria, and second longest-serving chief judge in Nigeria.
Go to Profile#2865
Michael Bauer
#168767
Overall Influence
#2866
Henry Peter
#129903
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Henry Peter , is a Swiss-French lawyer who specialises in corporate law and sports law. He is also a full professor of law at the University of Geneva, where he heads the multidisciplinary centre dedicated to philanthropy.
Go to Profile#2867
George Bunn
#113386
Overall Influence
1925 - 2013 (88 years)
George Bunn was an American diplomat, lawyer, and nonproliferation expert. He drafted the legislation that created the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency , was one of the lead U.S. negotiators of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty , served as Dean of the law school at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and spent the last two decades of his career at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.
Go to Profile#2868
Anita Anand
#112271
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Anita Indira Anand is a Canadian lawyer and politician who has served as the president of the Treasury Board since 2023. She has represented the riding of Oakville in the House of Commons since the 2019 federal election, sitting as a member of the Liberal Party.
Go to Profile#2869
Ralf Kölbel
#121784
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
Ralf Koelbel is professor of criminology, criminal law and criminal proceedings law at Bielefeld University. Academia Koelbel heads the Chair of Criminology, Criminal Law, and Criminal Proceedings Law at the Faculty of Law. His main research aims are in the fields of white-collar crime, law of criminal procedure, basic issues of criminal law, sociology of criminal law. From 2008-2009 he heads the Chair of Criminal Law, Law of Criminal Procedure, and Criminal Policy at the Deutsche Hochschule der Polizei. He is member of the board of the Institute for interdisciplinary research on conflict and...
Go to Profile#2870
María Teresa Fernández de la Vega
#89154
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
María Teresa Fernández de la Vega Sanz is a Spanish politician and magistrate of the Socialist Party. During her political career, she served as first deputy prime minister, minister of the Presidency and government spokesperson under prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero from 2004 to 2010 and as president of the Council of State from 2018 to 2022, being the first first female deputy prime minister and the first female president of the advisory council.
Go to Profile#2871
Adel Tamano
#74578
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (54 years)
Adel Abbas Tamano is a Filipino lawyer and educator. He is the current Chief Administrative Officer, Chief of Humans Resources, and Corporate Secretary of DITO Telecommunity Corporation. He gained prominence as the spokesperson for the United Opposition party in 2007 and was part of the senatorial lineup in 2010.
Go to Profile#2872
Fiona de Londras
#104620
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (44 years)
Fiona de Londras is an Irish academic and the Professor of Global Legal Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK. From 2019 to 2022, she was also an honorary professor at the Australian National University in Canberra.
Go to Profile#2873
S. Gregory Boyd
#88829
Overall Influence
S. Gregory Boyd is an American author, attorney, and professor specializing in intellectual property, the game industry, and high technology media. He is currently a partner and the chairman of the Interactive Entertainment Group at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz PC and an adjunct professor for the New York Law School. He also sits on the Board of Advisors for MobyGames.
Go to Profile#2874
Regina Graycar
#80765
Overall Influence
Regina Graycar is an Australian lawyer and academic. she is Emeritus Professor of the Law School of the University of Sydney. Graycar was awarded a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Adelaide and a Master of Laws degree from Harvard University.
Go to Profile#2875
Koen Geens
#100694
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Koen Geens is a Belgian jurist and politician of the Christian Democratic and Flemish who served as the Minister of Justice and as Deputy Prime Minister in the governmentss of Prime Ministerss Charles Michel and Sophie Wilmès.
Go to Profile#2876
Amanda Dehnert
#49747
Overall Influence
Amanda Dehnert is an American regional theater director and professor at Northwestern University. Career Dehnert grew up in Illinois and graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University with a degree in musical theater. She received training as a concert pianist as child and also learned to play the French horn, flute, trumpet and harpsichord, but in college she discovered musical theater. In 1994, at the age of 21, Dehnert entered Trinity Repertory Company's conservatory program in Providence, Rhode Island as a student. She performed there as a musician before becoming a musical director, and late...
Go to Profile#2877
Gary Kohlman
#156895
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Warren Gary Kohlman is the general counsel to the National Basketball Players Association and an American criminal defense attorney. Kohlman has represented several high-profile defendants and worked as a public defender for the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia.
Go to Profile#2878
Carlos Ramos Núñez
#86751
Overall Influence
1960 - 2021 (61 years)
Carlos Ramos Núñez was a Peruvian jurist and academic. He was a justice of the Constitutional Court from 2014 until his death.
Go to Profile#2879
John Y. Gotanda
#115684
Overall Influence
John Y. Gotanda is an American attorney and academic administrator who has worked as the president of Hawaii Pacific University since July 1, 2016. Early life and education Gotanda was born and raised in Hawaii, and earned his Bachelor of Business Administration from University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in 1984. He earned his Juris Doctor from the William S. Richardson School of Law in 1987.
Go to Profile#2880
Ron Arad
#22924
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Ron Arad, is a British-Israeli industrial designer, artist, and architectural designer. Biography Born in Tel Aviv, Israel, to a Jewish family. He studied at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem between 1971 and 1973, and at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London from 1974 to 1979. Ron Arad co-founded the design and production studio One Off in 1981 with Caroline Thorman. Ron Arad Associates architecture and design practice was formed in 1989 and in 2008 Ron Arad Architects was established alongside Ron Arad Associates, with Caroline Thorman and Asa Bruno.
Go to Profile#2881
Andrée Lajoie
#125461
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (91 years)
Andrée Lajoie is a Canadian jurist and academic living in Quebec. She was born in Montreal and began working as a journalist for Vie étudiante when she was 15. Lajoie received a bachelor's degree in law from the Université de Montréal and then studied political science at the University of Oxford while working as a correspondent for Radio Canada in London. In 1961, she moved to New York City with her husband, a diplomat at the United Nations.
Go to Profile#2882
Richard Searby
#106503
Overall Influence
1931 - 2018 (87 years)
Richard Henry Searby was an Australian lawyer, company director and academic. His father was Dr. Henry Searby, a founding member of the Royal Melbourne Hospital at Parkville and his mother, Mary Searby, was a philanthropist involved in community programs for the benefit of underprivileged people. He was born on 23 July 1931. His brother, Michael, held a doctorate in philosophy from Cambridge University and had a career as a director of companies.
Go to Profile#2883
Fernando Peña López
#129458
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Fernando Peña López is a Spanish lawyer specialized in civil law, and the current director of Fundación INADE-UDC Chair of risk management and insurance at Universidade da Coruña. He is an expert in civil liability, insurance law, and consumer law, and is author of publications in this field. He has worked as of Counsel for law firms and acted as am arbitrator of the Galician Arbitration Court. He earned a PhD from Universidade da Coruña in 2000 with a thesis on culpability in extracontractual civil liability, and furthered his studies at the universities of Roma-La Sapienza, Montpellier, Coim...
Go to Profile#2884
Susan J. Clark
#138090
Overall Influence
Professor Susan J. Clark is an Australian biomedical researcher in epigenetics of development and cancer. She was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2015, and is a National Health and Medical Research Council Senior Principal Research Fellow and Research Director and Head of Genomics and Epigenetics Division at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research. Clark developed the first method for bisulphite sequencing for DNA methylation analysis and used it to establish that the methylation machinery of mammalian cells is capable of both maintenance and de novo methylation at CpNpG sites and showed is inheritable.
Go to Profile#2885
Stephen Parker
#149042
Overall Influence
Stephen John Parker AO is a legal academic and university administrator who became Vice-Chancellor of the University of Canberra in 2007. Education Parker was born in the north of England. He graduated from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne with a Bachelor of Laws. He went on to obtain a PhD from the University of Wales.
Go to Profile#2886
Esther A. Hopkins
#82514
Overall Influence
1926 - 2021 (95 years)
Esther Arvilla Hopkins was an American chemist and environmental attorney. Hopkins was best known for her career as a biophysicist and research chemist at American Cyanamid along with research in the Polaroid Corp Emulsion Coating and Analysis Laboratory. She also pursued a career working as an attorney with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection following her time as a chemist.
Go to Profile#2887
David Clarke
#77224
Overall Influence
David Clarke is deputy vice-chancellor and Professor of Law at Bristol University. Biography Clark studied law at Queens' College Cambridge from 1968 to 1972, obtaining his BA degree in 1971 and LLM in 1972. He became a Solicitor of the Supreme Court in 1975, serving Articles of Clerkship with Andrew & Co, Solicitors of Lincoln and was an assistant solicitor to that firm until his appointment as lecturer in law at the University of Bristol in 1977.
Go to Profile#2888
Michael Kinch
#113148
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Michael Scott Kinch is an American academic and author of books on the history of science and medicine. He has helped lead innovation and entrepreneurship activities at Washington University in St Louis since 2014.
Go to Profile#2889
John F. Davis
#81996
Overall Influence
1907 - 2000 (93 years)
John F. Davis was an American lawyer, law clerk, and law professor whose career included work on the defense team of Alger Hiss from 1948 to 1950" and ten years of service as the 14th Clerk of the Supreme Court of the United States from September 1, 1961 to August 31, 1970.
Go to Profile#2890
Jewel Freeman Graham
#89544
Overall Influence
1925 - 2015 (90 years)
Precious Jewel Freeman Graham was an educator, social worker, and attorney. She was professor emeritus of social work and legal studies at Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio. She was the second black woman to serve as president of the World YWCA. She was named to the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame in 2008.
Go to Profile#2891
Steve Bullock
#80096
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Stephen Clark Bullock is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 24th governor of Montana from 2013 to 2021. He is a member of the Democratic Party. Born in Missoula, Montana, Bullock graduated from Claremont McKenna College and Columbia Law School. He began his career working as legal counsel to the Secretary of State of Montana before becoming the Executive Assistant Attorney General and acting Chief Deputy Attorney General of Montana. Bullock then entered private practice as a lawyer for Steptoe & Johnson. He was an adjunct professor at George Washington University Law School before opening his own law firm upon returning to Montana.
Go to Profile#2892
Douglas M. Branson
#142229
Overall Influence
Douglas M. Branson holds the W. Edward Sell Chair in Business Law at the University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. He is a specialist in corporate law, corporate governance, finance, mergers and acquisitions, and securities law.
Go to Profile#2893
Margaret Lemos
#153226
Overall Influence
Margaret H. Lemos is an American legal scholar of constitutional law, legal institutions, and procedure. She is currently Robert G. Seaks Distinguished Professor of Law at Duke University School of Law, where she has taught since 2011.
Go to Profile#2894
Waleed Aly
#69213
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (46 years)
Waleed Aly is an Australian television presenter, journalist, academic, and lawyer. Aly is a lecturer in politics at Monash University working in their Global Terrorism Research Centre, and a co-host of Network Ten's news and current affairs television program The Project. He also writes for Fairfax Media, co-hosts The Minefield, an ABC RN program about ethical dilemmas of modern life, and is lead guitarist in rock band Robot Child.
Go to Profile#2895
Carl Esbeck
#133593
Overall Influence
Carl H. Esbeck is the R.B. Price Distinguished Professor and the Isabelle Wade & Paul C. Lyda Professor of Law at the University of Missouri School of Law. He joined the law faculty in 1981. He has published in the areas of church-state relations and civil rights. He has taken the lead in advancing a structural view of the establishment clause of the first amendment, and is also credited as the primary author of the original charitable choice language in the 1996 welfare reform bill.
Go to Profile#2896
Dennis Crouch
#77227
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Dennis Crouch is an American double bassist raised in Strawberry, Arkansas, United States. He came from a musical family and started playing bass when he was eight years old. In 1996 he moved to Nashville, Tennessee. Two years later, he co-founded the Time Jumpers, a western swing band. He left the band in 2012. He has recorded and performed with Gregg Allman, T Bone Burnett, Johnny Cash, Elvis Costello, Harry Connick Jr., Elton John, Diana Krall, Alison Krauss, Imelda May, Willie Nelson, Robert Plant, Steven Tyler, John Mellencamp, Ralph Stanley, Paula Cole, Loretta Lynn, Vince Gill, The Chi...
Go to Profile#2897
Neri Colmenares
#117790
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Neri Javier Colmenares is a Filipino legislator, human rights lawyer and activist. He was an associate of the Asian Law Centre at Melbourne Law School when he was completing his Ph.D. in law on "The Writ of Amparo and the International Criminal Court." He also lectured at the University of Melbourne on International Human Rights Law and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Go to Profile#2898
Shah M. Faruque
#14434
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Shah Mohammad Faruque is a professor in the School of Environment and Life Sciences at Independent University Bangladesh . He is widely recognized for his research in Vibrio cholerae, the bacterium which causes the epidemic diarrhoeal disease Cholera. Among other positions, previously he was a professor at BRAC University; director of the Genomics Centre at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh , and formerly director of the Centre for Food and Water Borne Diseases in ICDDR,B. His areas of research interest include microbial genomics, bacteriophages, environmen...
Go to Profile#2899
Rosemary Owens
#99193
Overall Influence
Rosemary Joan Owens AO was the Dean of Law at the University of Adelaide Law School. She first started working at the University of Adelaide in 1987 as a tutor in the law school, becoming a Senior Lecturer in 1995, Associate Professor in 2005, and in 2008 she was appointed as a Professor of Law. She had previously performed the role of Associate Dean and replaced Paul Fairall upon his departure in 2008, remaining in the role until 2011.
Go to Profile#2900
Peter B. Bennett
#40268
Overall Influence
1931 - 2022 (91 years)
Peter B. Bennett was the founder and a president and CEO of the Divers Alert Network , a non-profit organization devoted to assisting scuba divers in need. He was a professor of anesthesiology at Duke University Medical Center, and was the Senior Director of the Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Environmental Physiology at Duke. Bennett is recognized as a leading authority on the effects of high pressure on human physiology.
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