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,
#3051
Anna Donald
#53920
Overall Influence
1966 - 2009 (43 years)
Anastasia Katherine Donald , known as Anna Donald, was an Australian pioneer in the field of evidence-based medicine as well as an epidemiologist and company director. Early life and early education Donald was the child of biologist Tony Courtice and Janet Donald . Her maternal grandmother was reportedly of Chinese descent. When Donald was 2, her parents separated. Following her parents' separation, she and her mother lived with Donald's maternal grandparents for a year. Later, Donald's mother divorced her Courtice and married lawyer Bruce Donald, with whom she would rear Anna, who took her surrogate father's surname .
Go to Profile#3052
Justin L. Quackenbush
#146879
Overall Influence
1929 - Present (95 years)
Justin Lowe Quackenbush is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Washington. Education and career Quackenbush was born in Spokane, Washington on October 3, 1929. His father, Carl Quackenbush, was a law student who eventually became a Superior Court judge in Spokane. Quackenbush received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Idaho in 1951. He received a Bachelor of Laws from Gonzaga University School of Law, his father's alma mater, in 1957. He was an officer in the United States Navy from 1951 to 1954. He was a deputy prosecuting attorney in Spokane County, Washington from 1957 to 1959.
Go to Profile#3053
Nathan Oman
#119125
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (49 years)
Nathan Bryan "Nate" Oman is the Rollins Professor of Law at the law school of the College of William and Mary. He is a legal scholar and educator. In 2006, he became an assistant professor at The College of William & Mary Law School. In 2003, Oman founded Times & Seasons, An Onymous Mormon Blog.
Go to Profile#3054
Choo Mi-ae
#121536
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Choo Mi-ae is a South Korean politician who served as the Minister of Justice as well as five-term parliamentarian and 3rd leader of Democratic Party. She is the first woman to hold the post after Kang Kum-sil who was appointed by then-president Roh Moo-hyun, a political mentor of the incumbent Moon Jae-in. She is also one of handful female parliamentarians who have served five or more terms at the National Assembly and the first to do so without ever being elected through proportional representation.
Go to Profile#3055
Sarah Lewis
#82756
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (45 years)
Sarah Elizabeth Lewis is an associate professor of History of Art and Architecture and African and African-American studies at Harvard University. Her research focuses on the intersection of African American and Black Atlantic visual representation, racial justice, and representational democracy in the United States from the nineteenth century through the present.
Go to Profile#3056
Robert S. Galen
#61173
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Robert S. Galen is a physician, Professor Emeritus Epidemiology and former Senior Associate Dean in the College of Public Health at The University of Georgia. Galen is also the former Chair of the Division of Public Health at UGA's Biomedical Health Science Institute and founder of the Global Health Program there.
Go to Profile#3057
Ifeoma Ajunwa
#108240
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (44 years)
Ifeoma Yvonne Ajunwa is a Nigerian-American writer, AI Ethics legal scholar, sociologist, and tenured professor of law at the University of North Carolina School Of Law in the United States. She is currently a Visiting Fellow at Yale Law School's Information Society Project and she has been a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard Law School since 2017. From 2021–2022, she was a Fulbright Scholar to Nigeria where she studied the role of law for tech start-ups. At UNC Law, she is the Founding Director of the AI Decision-Making Research Program at UNC Law where she designed and created the first ever clearinghouse for scholarship and research on AI and the Law.
Go to Profile#3058
Cynthia Eppes Hudson
#163490
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Cynthia Eppes Hudson is an American lawyer who serves as Chief Deputy Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia. A native of Crewe, Virginia, Hudson graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1981; she completed her J.D. degree at the Marshall-Wythe School of Law of the College of William and Mary in 1987. Initially upon graduation she joined the Richmond law firm McGuire, Woods, Battle & Boothe; choosing a path of civic service instead she became deputy city attorney for Hampton, Virginia in 1996, and was appointed city attorney in 2006. She was named deputy attorney general by Mark R.
Go to Profile#3059
Patrick Shea
#109957
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Patrick A. Shea is an American lawyer, author, politician, government official, and legal scholar known for his work on freedom of the press cases. He also served as director of the Bureau of Land Management in 1997 and 1998.
Go to Profile#3060
Judy Fudge
#170653
Overall Influence
Judy Fudge is a scholar of labour law and the LIUNA Enrico Henry Mancinelli Professor in Global Labour Issues at McMaster University. Before coming to McMaster, Fudge was a professor of law at the University of Kent and the Landsdowne Chair in Law at the University of Victoria Faculty of Law. In 2019, she received the Bora Laskin Award from the University of Toronto in recognition of her work on labour law.
Go to Profile#3061
Alan Bernstein
#33673
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Alan Bernstein is Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto and President Emeritus of CIFAR, where he served as President and CEO from 2012 to 2022. A Distinguished Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, he is also a Fellow and Member of the Standing Committee for Science Planning at the International Science Council . Bernstein is recognized as a leader in health research, science policy, mentorship and organizational leadership.
Go to Profile#3062
Felix Oberholzer-Gee
#53004
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Felix Oberholzer-Gee is a Swiss academic. He is the Andreas Andresen Professor of Business Administration in the Strategy Unit at Harvard Business School. A member of the faculty since 2003, Professor Oberholzer-Gee received his master's degree, summa cum laude, and his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Zurich.
Go to Profile#3063
Philip Leach
#137963
Overall Influence
Philip Leach is professor of human rights law at Middlesex University and director of the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre. In 2015, Leach was named Human Rights Lawyer of the Year at the Law Society of England and Wales's annual Excellence Awards.
Go to Profile#3064
Jacques deLisle
#95837
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Jacques Louis deLisle is an American legal scholar and political scientist. DeLisle earned a bachelor of arts degree in public and international affairs at Princeton University in 1982, and pursued a doctorate in political science in the Government Department of the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. He completed his Juris Doctor at Harvard Law School, then clerked for Stephen Breyer before working for the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice. In 1994, deLisle joined the University of Pennsylvania faculty as an assistant professor of law. He was made a full professor in 1999, and became Stephen A.
Go to Profile#3065
William R. Perl
#132263
Overall Influence
1906 - 1998 (92 years)
William R. Perl was a Prague-born American lawyer and psychologist who was the chief interrogator during the Malmedy massacre trial. Early life and education William R. Perl was born to a textile merchant in Prague on September 21, 1906, in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He spent much of his youth and early adulthood in Vienna. Perl attended the University of Vienna, where he earned a Ph.D. in law and a master's degree in international business. He joined Ivria, one of several Jewish fraternities, as a student and soon became deeply immersed in the growing Zionist movement. Perl e...
Go to Profile#3066
Jon L. Mills
#139813
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Jon L. Mills is an American lawyer and former politician. Education Mills earned a B.A. from Stetson University in 1969. He went on to the University of Florida College of Law where he graduated second overall in 1972. While at the Levin College of Law, he served on the Florida Law Review, and was a member of Florida Blue Key. Before Mills became the Dean of the Levin College of Law, he served as a Professor at the University of Florida in 1995.
Go to Profile#3067
David Francis
#125436
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
David Francis is an Australian novelist, lawyer and academic. Life David Francis was born in the Mornington Bush Nursing Hospital in Victoria, Australia on 12 November 1958. His mother, Judith Francis, was a prominent Australian horsewoman. Francis spent much of his early life between Mount Eliza, where he attended The Peninsula School, and his family farm, "Tooradin Estate".
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Carolyn Bratt
#116603
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Carolyn S. Bratt is an activist and emeritus law professor at the University of Kentucky. She has been faculty at the University of Kentucky College of Law since 1975. Career Bratt attended the State University of New York at Albany in 1965 with a major in History. She taught middle school history from 1965 to 1974 in the Syracuse public school system. In 1969, Bratt and another teacher filed a lawsuit against the Board of Education of the Syracuse City School District because they claimed they had not been paid for coaching extramural basketball, as they should have been according to the co...
Go to Profile#3069
Sheila Simon
#128865
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Sheila J. Simon is an American politician who served as the 46th Lieutenant Governor of Illinois, from 2011 to 2015. In 2014, she was the Democratic nominee for Illinois State Comptroller, losing to Republican incumbent Judy Baar Topinka. Simon is the daughter of former U.S. Senator Paul Simon, who had previously served as Lieutenant Governor of Illinois , and his first wife, former Illinois State Representative Jeanne Hurley Simon.
Go to Profile#3070
Paul du Plessis
#141995
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (50 years)
Paul du Plessis is a legal historian with a focus on law and society within the Roman Empire. He is the Professor of Roman Law at the University of Edinburgh and Director of The Centre for Legal History.
Go to Profile#3071
Kadir Mısıroğlu
#67539
Overall Influence
1933 - 2019 (86 years)
Kadir Mısıroğlu was a Turkish writer, publisher and conspiracy theorist. He was known for his staunch opposition to the early Kemalist regime of Turkey and advocating the restoration of the caliphate. Mısıroğlu's claims include that Joseph Stalin ordered his army to read the Quran on the sands against the Nazis, William Shakespeare being a secret Muslim, and that Karl Marx's Das Kapital was dictated by demons. He penned over 50 books, which include non-fiction, fiction, and poems. His works have been criticized for their approach, awareness and bias.
Go to Profile#3072
Frank Hoffmeister
#172268
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Frank Hoffmeister is a lawyer from Germany now working in the European External Action Service. He is the President of the Brussels branch Europa Union. Education Hoffmeister was born in Frankfurt in 1969. He studied law at university and was awarded a Law PhD from Heidelberg University in 1998. He was an assistant at Humboldt University's Walter Hallstein Institute for European Constitutional Law and a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for International Law.
Go to Profile#3073
Joanne Scott
#175610
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Joanne Scott is a legal scholar. She is Professor of European Law and head of the department of law at the European Law Institute. Biography Scott has previously taught at several universities, including the University of Kent, Queen Mary University, and the University of Cambridge. She has held visiting professorships at Columbia Law School and Harvard Law School. Scott was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2012 and as a Fellow of the British Academy in 2013. She is also a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.
Go to Profile#3074
Florence Benoît-Rohmer
#135894
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Florence Benoît-Rohmer is a French jurist, specializing in European Law and Human Rights, and currently a Professor of Public Law at the University of Strasbourg. Biography Benoît-Rohmer was born in Strasbourg and was educated at the Lycée Internationale des Pontonniers before attending the Robert Schuman University, where she obtained a master's degree in Public Law, as well as DEA post-graduate diplomas in Public Law and Community Law, and a Doctorate.
Go to Profile#3075
Margaret Burnham
#46968
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Margaret A. Burnham is an American lawyer and academic who is a professor at the Northeastern University School of Law and the founder of the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project. She is a Senate-confirmed nominee to be a member of the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board.
Go to Profile#3076
Sergio Marchisio
#126998
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Sergio Marchisio is a full professor at Sapienza University of Rome. He also serves as an expert legal consultant for the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and as a delegate to various international organizations and conferences.
Go to Profile#3077
Claudia Geiringer
#155031
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
Claudia Geiringer is a New Zealand professor of law. In 2022 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi. Academic career Geiringer did an LLB at Victoria University of Wellington, a BA at the University of Otago and an LL.M. at Columbia Law School in New York City as a Fulbright Scholar, an Ethel Benjamin Scholar and a James Kent Scholar. From 1996 to 2001 Geiringer worked as Crown Counsel in the Bill of Rights team at the Crown Law Office. She received Marsden funding in the 2013 round.
Go to Profile#3078
Maboula Soumahoro
#52765
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (48 years)
Maboula Soumahoro is a French scholar and Afro-feminist whose parents came to France from the Ivory Coast in the late 1960s. An associate professor in the English department of the University of Tours, she specializes in studies on Afro-American diaspora and has published a paper on Rastafarianism. A contributor to the French committee on the history of slavery , Soumahoro launched the French version of Black History Month in 2011. In 2020, she published Le triangle et l’hexagone inspired by her own experiences as an anti-racist Black French Muslim.
Go to Profile#3079
Kim Oe-sook
#164095
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Kim Oe-sook is a South Korean lawyer served as President Moon Jae-in's Senior Presidential Secretary for Personnel Affairs from 2019 to 2022 and previously served as his first Minister of Government Legislation - the second woman ever to lead the Ministry.
Go to Profile#3080
Paula Giddings
#44327
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Paula J. Giddings is an American writer, historian, and civil rights activist. She is the author of When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America , In Search of Sisterhood: Delta Sigma Theta and the Challenge of the Black Sorority Movement
Go to Profile#3081
Elisabeth McDonald
#140591
Overall Influence
Elisabeth McDonald is a New Zealand feminist law academic. She is currently full professor at the University of Canterbury. Academic career McDonald began a BLaws at Victoria University of Wellington in 1985, followed by an MLaws at the University of Michigan. Returning to Victoria, she was appointed to staff, rising to senior lecturer in 1995 and associate professor in 2005. After 27 years at Victoria she moved to the University of Canterbury as full professor in 2017.
Go to Profile#3082
Stephen Bainbridge
#176943
Overall Influence
#3083
Jack Corrigan
#134772
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Jack Corrigan was born in Somerville, Massachusetts on September 29, 1956. He graduated from Boston College High School, Harvard University, and Harvard Law School. He is currently a Boston lawyer, a teacher at Harvard Law, and a Democratic Operative.
Go to Profile#3084
Ashani Weeraratna
#70890
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (49 years)
Ashani Tanuja Weeraratna is a Sri Lanka-born American cancer researcher whose findings are contributing to the scientific understanding of melanoma tumors. She is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of cancer biology and the E.V. McCollum Professor and Chair of the department of biochemistry and molecular biology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Weeraratna is a member of the National Cancer Advisory Board, which advises and assists the director of the National Cancer Institute on the activities of the national cancer program.
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Mustafa Şentop
#141768
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
Mustafa Şentop is a Turkish politician from the Justice and Development Party who has served as the Member of Parliament in the 24, 25, 26th, and 27th legislative terms. On 24 February 2019, he was elected as the 29th Speaker of the Grand National Assembly.
Go to Profile#3086
Martha Jackman
#116879
Overall Influence
Martha Jackman is a professor of law at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law. Her scholarship focuses on constitutional law. Jackman received her JD from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law and an LLM from Yale Law School. In 2012, she delivered testimony to a committee of the Senate of Canada on the Charter implications of proposed amendments to the Criminal Code. She has been a member of the national steering committee of the National Association of Women and the Law since 2007.
Go to Profile#3087
Ard van der Steur
#138643
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Gerard Adriaan "Ard" van der Steur is a retired Dutch politician of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy and lawyer. Early life Gerard Adriaan van der Steur was born on 7 October 1969 in Haarlem in the Province of North Holland as the son of Ab van der Steur a tailor and antiquarian bookseller. Van der Steur studied at the Leiden University an received a Bachelor of Laws and a Master of Laws degree in 1995. Van der Steur worked as a lawyer from 1995 until 2010. He was a Legal educator at the Leiden University from 2006 until 2010. He served in the municipal council of Warmond from 2002 until 2006, and of its successor Teylingen from 2006 until 2014.
Go to Profile#3088
Gary King
#119055
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Gary Kenneth King is an American lawyer, politician, and energy consultant who served as the 30th attorney general of New Mexico from January 1, 2007, to January 1, 2015. King previously served as an advisor in the United States Department of Energy, a member of the New Mexico House of Representatives, and the Democratic nominee for New Mexico governor in the 2014 election.
Go to Profile#3089
Alan Cameron
#169908
Overall Influence
Alan Cameron is a Senior Lecturer on the Faculty of Law of Victoria University of Wellington in Wellington, New Zealand. His academic speciality is accountancy law. Cameron is also a Juridical scholar who reflects on the nature of law in relation to the distinctives of the New Zealand legal tradition and the wider legal developments around the world. He is a critical proponent of the Juridical philosophy developed by past professor of law at the Free University in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Dr Herman Dooyeweerd.
Go to Profile#3090
Cassandra Szoeke
#92591
Overall Influence
Cassandra Szoeke is an Australian medical researcher and practicing physician in internal medicine, with a sub-specialisation in neurology. Szoeke is the director of the Healthy Ageing Program at the University of Melbourne and principal investigator of the Women’s Healthy Ageing Project, which is the longest ongoing study of women's health in Australia.
Go to Profile#3091
Tara Leigh Grove
#150641
Overall Influence
Tara Leigh Grove is an American legal scholar working as a professor and the Vinson & Elkins Chair in Law at the University of Texas School of Law. Education Grove earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science, summa cum laude, from Duke University. She spent a year teaching English in Japan and earned a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. In law school, Grove worked as the Supreme Court chair of the Harvard Law Review.
Go to Profile#3092
David Ayer
#58926
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
David Ayer is an American filmmaker known for making crime films that are set in Los Angeles and deal with gangs and police corruption. His screenplays include Training Day , The Fast and the Furious , and S.W.A.T. . He has also directed Harsh Times , Street Kings , End of Watch , and Sabotage . In 2016, he directed the superhero movie Suicide Squad from the DC Extended Universe, and then the urban fantasy film Bright for Netflix. He has twice collaborated with actor Shia LaBeouf: first with the World War II drama Fury , then the crime thriller The Tax Collector . He has also collaborated wi...
Go to Profile#3093
Takashi Ikegami
#102241
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Takashi Ikegami is a professor for at the University of Tokyo. He specializes in artificial life and complexity, and has been known to engage on the border between art and science. External links Homepage at Tokyo UniversityThe case for complexity over simplicity in science
Go to Profile#3094
Jadesola Akande
#103161
Overall Influence
1940 - 2008 (68 years)
Jadesola Olayinka Akande was a Nigerian lawyer, author and academic who is regarded as the first Nigerian female professor of Law. Early life and education Akande Jadesola Olayinka was born on 15,November 1940, in Ibadan, Oyo State,defunct Western Region of Nigeria. Akande Jadesola Olayinka completed her nursery, basic and secondary school education at Ibadan People's Girls School and St. Annes School respectively. She obtained her G.C.E Advanced Level certificate after attending Barnstaple Girls Grammar School, Devon, England before proceeding to study a course in Law at the University Coll...
Go to Profile#3095
Brian T. Fitzpatrick
#173645
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (49 years)
Brian Timothy Fitzpatrick is an American academic and lawyer. Fitzpatrick is known for his unorthodox advocacy of class action lawsuits from a conservative point of view, and is the author of a book on the subject, The Conservative Case for Class Actions .
Go to Profile#3096
Daliah Saper
#161513
Overall Influence
Daliah Saper is an American intellectual property, internet, entertainment and business attorney. She founded the Chicago law firm Saper Law Offices in 2005. She is also an adjunct professor at Loyola University Chicago School of Law.
Go to Profile#3097
Camille Kouchner
#122344
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (49 years)
Camille Kouchner , is a lawyer, French academic and lecturer in private law. With her book, La familia grande, she initiated the Duhamel scandal. Biography Camille Kouchner was born on June 17, 1975, daughter of the doctor and politician Bernard Kouchner and the writer and political scientist Évelyne Pisier. She is the niece of the mathematician Gilles Pisier and of the actress and novelist Marie-France Pisier.
Go to Profile#3098
Ysaiah Ross
#156583
Overall Influence
Ysaiah 'Stan' Ross is an American lawyer, academic and writer. Ross was educated in New York and California, gaining a law degree from University of California, Berkeley in 1964. Before teaching law and legal ethics at University of New South Wales he lectured at Auckland University and Makerere University, Uganda.
Go to Profile#3099
Elizabeth Jane Via
#125260
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Elizabeth Jane Via, IHM, is a California lawyer who was born in St. Louis, MO in 1947. As of November 2019, over one hundred and forty women have been ordained in the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement worldwide. RCWP is not sanctioned by the Roman Catholic Church, which considers ordination of women a violation of its canon law 1024 and invalid.
Go to Profile#3100
John Hill
#110195
Overall Influence
1923 - 2007 (84 years)
John Luke Hill Jr. was an American lawyer, Democratic politician, and judge. He is the only person to have served as Secretary of State of Texas, Texas Attorney General, and Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court.
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