Search People Result | Academic Influence

Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines

Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.

Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.

We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.

To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).

Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …

See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.

Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Law,

#3901

William Thompson

1678 - 1739 (61 years)

Sir William Thompson of Middle Temple, was an English judge and Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1709 and 1729. Early life Thompson was second son of Sir William Thompson , serjeant-at-law, and his wife, Mary Stephens of Bermondsey. He was educated at Brentwood Grammar School and admitted at Trinity College, Cambridge on 25 April 1691, aged 14. He was awarded BA in 1695.

#3902

Andreas Dudith

1533 - 1589 (56 years)

Andreas Dudith , also András Dudith de Horahovicza , was a Hungarian nobleman of Croatian and Italian origin, bishop, humanist and diplomat in the Kingdom of Hungary. Dudith was born in Buda, capital city of the Kingdom of Hungary to a Hungarian noble family with Croatian origins. His father, Jeromos Dudits, was a Croatian and his mother was an Italian. He studied in Wrocław, Italy, Vienna, Brussels and Paris.

#3903

Richard von Kaufmann

1850 - 1908 (58 years)

Richard von Kaufmann was a German jurist and art collector. Kaufmann was born in Cologne and became a respected professor and minister of finance. He began to collect art while living in Berlin and donated several works to the new museum began by Wilhelm von Bode. He published a catalog of his collection with help from his friends Bode, Max Friedländer, Friedrich Lippmann and Hugo von Tschudi in 1901.

#3904

Florence Elizabeth Cory

Florence Elizabeth Cory

1851 - 1902 (51 years)

Florence Elizabeth Cory was an American industrial designer and school founder. She was the first practical woman designer in the United States. Cory took up designing in 1877, being led to it by the sight of ugly carpets. After a course of theory in Cooper Union, she visited representative factories of the United States, and became familiar with the practical end of the business. She became a designer of wall paper, woolens and silks, as well as carpets. In 1878, Cory taught an afternoon class of 17 women pupils in Cooper Union the art of designing practically for carpets. This was the first class as far as known ever formed to teach practical industrial design to women.

#3905

William Atherton

1806 - 1864 (58 years)

Sir William Atherton QC was a Scottish barrister and Liberal Party politician. An advanced Liberal who favoured the secret ballot and widening of suffrage, he held a seat in the House of Commons from 1852 to 1864, and was a Law Officer of the Crown for four years.

#3906

Rudolf Felder

1842 - 1871 (29 years)

Rudolf Felder was an Austrian jurist and entomologist. He was mainly interested in Lepidoptera, amassing, with his father, Cajetan Felder, a huge collection. Works with Cajetan Felder, Lepidopterologische Fragmente. Wiener Entomologische Monatschrift 3:390–405. Lepidopterorum Amboinensium a Dre L. Doleschall annis 1856 - 1868 collectorum species novae, diagnostibus collustratae. Sitzungsberichten der k. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Wien, Jahr. .with Cajetan Felder and Alois Friedrich Rogenhofer Reise der österreichischen Fregatte Novara um die Erde. . . .. Zool. Theil. Vol. 2, Part 2. Lepidoptera.

#3907

Aguedo Mojica

1908 - 1981 (73 years)

Aguedo Mojica Marrero was a Puerto Rican politician, lawyer and educator. He is noted for his academic work. Early years and studies Aguedo Mojica was born on March 16, 1908, in Humacao, Puerto Rico. He studied at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus where he was doctored in philosophy and later in law from the University of Puerto Rico School of Law. He was also a law professor at the same institution. He worked as a professor at the University of Puerto Rico, as a professor of Latin, in 1943, and thereafter taught philosophical chair. He earned a Doctor degree in Law philosophy...

#3908

Ilija Despot

1885 - 1970 (85 years)

Ilija Despot was a Croatian theologian, lawyer, poet and writer. Early life Ilija Despot was the son of Pavao Despot and Countess Manda Kostanjić of the noble house of Kostanjić from Drvenik. He was also the nephew of the Croatian writer Ivan Despot, after whose example he wished to become a priest. After his theological studies in Zadar however, he decided to remain a layman and went on to study law, in which he achieved a doctorate in Zagreb in 1920.

#3909

Aleem al-Razee

1925 - 1985 (60 years)

Aleem al-Razee was a Bangladeshi lawyer and politician. Early life Razee was born in 1925 in Karatia in Nagarpur Upazila, Tangail District, East Bengal, British India. He completed a M.A. and a law degree from University of Calcutta. He earned a PhD from the University of London.

#3910

Naum Slutzky

1894 - 1965 (71 years)

Naum Slutzky was a goldsmith, industrial designer and master craftsman of the Bauhaus. In the art history literature his first name is sometimes spelled as Nahum or Nawn. Bauhaus Slutzky studied to become a goldsmith at Wiener Werkstätte in Vienna. From 1919 he taught at the Bauhaus in Weimar, working with Johannes Itten. He mainly designed jewellery and lamps, but also teapots and coffee pots . In 1924 he left Bauhaus to become an independent designer.

#3911

John Savage

1779 - 1863 (84 years)

John Savage was an American lawyer and politician. Early life Savage was born on February 22, 1779, in Salem, New York. He was the son of Mary Savage and Edward Savage, who served in the Penobscot Expedition and enlisted in Col. Samuel McCobb's regiment during the American Revolutionary War.

#3912

Lysander Spooner

Lysander Spooner

1808 - 1887 (79 years)

Lysander Spooner was an American abolitionist, entrepreneur, lawyer, essayist, natural rights legal theorist, pamphletist, political philosopher, Unitarian and writer often associated with the Boston anarchist tradition. Although the notion of Spooner as an anarchist has been challenged by legal historian Clay S. Conrad, who pointed out that Spooner advocated constitutionally limited governments in his writings .

#3913

Arkadii Elistratov

1872 - Present (154 years)

Arkadii Ivanovich Elistratov was professor of police law at Moscow University. In the 1910s he drafted laws to end the regulation of prostitution and to outlaw it instead. Selected publications O prikreplenii zhenshchiny k prostitutsii. Kazan, 1903."Bednost' i prostitutsiia" in Soiuz zhenshchin, Nos. 3–4. : 5–7; 4–7."Meditsinskaia statistika zashchitnikov politsii nravov" in Trudy s"ezda po bor'be s torgom zhenshchinami i ego prichinami proiskhodivshchago v S.-Peterburge s 21 do 25 aprelia 1910 goda, Vol. 2., St. Petersburg, 1911–12."Rol' prava i nravstvennosti v bor'be s torgom i kupleiu zhe...

#3914

George Irving

1874 - 1961 (87 years)

George Henry Irving was an American film actor and director. Career Irving started his career as a theatre actor, notably as leading man to Maude Adams. He came to Hollywood in 1914 and acted in over 250 films from 1914 until 1948. Irving was initially an actor-director and directed about 35 silent films, which are mostly forgotten today. He switched exclusively to acting in the mid-1920s and became a character actor until the later 1940s.

#3915

Caspar Ziegler

1621 - 1690 (69 years)

Caspar Ziegler, also Kaspar Ziegler, was a German jurist, poet, hymnwriter and composer. He was the Rektor of the University of Wittenberg. Career Ziegler was born in Leipzig the son of Caspar Ziegler sr., a lawyer and Prokonsul in the town council, and his wife Anna . He studied at the University of Leipzig.

#3916

Astesanus of Asti

Astesanus of Asti was an important Franciscan canon lawyer and theologian, from Asti in Piedmont. His major work is Summa de casibus conscientiae , a confessional work, in manuscript from around 1317 and comprising eight volumes and three indices. Its writing is said to have been at the prompting of Cardinal Giovanni Gaetano Orsini.

#3917

Abdul Razzaq Gilani

1134 - 1207 (73 years)

ʿAbd al-Razzāq b. ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī , also known as Abū Bakr al-Jīlī or ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Jīlānī for short, or reverentially as Shaykh ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Jīlānī by Sunni Muslims, was a Persian Sunni Muslim Hanbali theologian, jurist, traditionalist and Sufi mystic based in Baghdad. He received his initial training in the traditional Islamic sciences from his father, Abdul-Qadir Gilani , the founder of the Qadiriyya order of Sunni mysticism, prior to setting out "on his own to attend the lectures of other prominent Hanbali scholars" in his region. He is sometimes given the Arabic honora...

#3918

J. R. E. Lee

1864 - 1944 (80 years)

John Robert Edward Lee Sr. was an early leader in African-American education. He served as the third President of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, a historically black college, from 1924 to 1944.

#3919

Thomas Lynch

1727 - 1776 (49 years)

Other notable people share this name. See Thomas Lynch .Thomas Lynch was an American planter and statesman from South Carolina. He was a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress of 1765 and the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1776, and signed the 1774 Continental Association.

#3920

Frank Brennan

1873 - 1950 (77 years)

Francis Brennan was an Australian lawyer and politician. He was a member of the Australian Labor Party and served as Attorney-General in the Scullin government . He was a member of the House of Representatives for over 35 years , one of the longest periods of service. His brother Tom Brennan was a United Australia Party senator, a rare instance of family members representing opposing parties.

#3921

Al-Fadl ibn Shadhan

Abu Muḥammad al-Faḍl ibn Shadhan ibn Khalil al-Azdi al-Naysaburi , better known as al-Faḍl ibn Shadhan was an Arab Muslim traditionist, jurist, and theologian. He was highly regarded by the Imami Shi'a as one of the leading Imāmī scholars of his time.

#3922

James Balfour

1705 - 1795 (90 years)

James Balfour of Pilrig JP was a Scottish advocate and philosopher. Life He was born on 20 August 1705 at Pilrig House, midway between Leith and Edinburgh. He was one of the 16 children of Louisa Hamilton and her husband, James Balfour . His father had acquired the estate of Pilrig from the Gilbert family, which had lost a fortune in the Darien Expedition. His father built the current Pilrig House around 1705.

#3923

John of Legnano

John of Legnano

1320 - 1383 (63 years)

John of Legnano was an Italian jurist, a canon lawyer at the University of Bologna and the most prominent defender of Pope Urban VI at the outbreak of the Western Schism. Biography John was born in Legnano.

#3924

Petrus van der Aa

1530 - 1594 (64 years)

Petrus or Pieter van der Aa , also called Vanderanus, was a Brabantine jurist. Biography Petrus van der Aa was born in Leuven. His father, Johan van der Aa, was a descendant of a well-known Brabantine family of patricians, which had settled in Leuven, Mechelen and Antwerp.

#3925

Min Chiu Li

1919 - 1980 (61 years)

Min Chiu Li was a Chinese-American oncologist and cancer researcher. Li was the first scientist to use chemotherapy to cure widely metastatic, malignant cancer. Early life and education Born in China, Li studied at Mukden Medical College in present-day Shenyang. Li came to the United States in 1947 for medical training at the University of Southern California, but was unable to return to his home country due to the Chinese Revolution. Li served as a resident at Chicago's Presbyterian Hospital and from 1953 to 1955 worked as a Damon Runyon Fellow at Memorial Hospital in New York City. In 195...

#3926

John Robertson

1787 - 1873 (86 years)

John Robertson was a nineteenth-century politician and lawyer from the U.S. state of Virginia. He was the brother of Thomas B. Robertson and Wyndham Robertson. Biography Born at "Bellefield" near Petersburg, Virginia, Robertson completed preparatory studies and graduated from the College of William and Mary. He studied law and was admitted to the bar, commencing practice in Richmond, Virginia. He served as Attorney General of Virginia before being elected an Anti-Jacksonian and Whig to the United States House of Representatives to fill a vacancy, serving from 1834 to 1839. Afterwards, Roberts...

#3927

Jefferson R. Boulware

1867 - 1913 (46 years)

Jefferson R. Boulware was an American lawyer and politician. Born in Putnam County, Illinois, Boulware moved with his family to Clark County, Missouri. He went to the Clark County public schools and then graduated from LaGrange College in Missouri . He went to a law school in St. Louis, Missouri, and was admitted to the Missouri bar. Boulware taught school in Petersburg, Illinois. In 1896, Boulware moved to Peoria, Illinois, and continued to practice law. Boulware served in the Illinois House of Representatives from 1901 to 1905 and was a Democrat. Boulware died in a hospital in Springfield,...

#3928

Alexander Schomberg

1756 - 1792 (36 years)

Alexander Crowcher Schomberg was an English poet and writer on jurisprudence. Life The son of Ralph Schomberg of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, he was born there on 6 July 1756. From Southampton School he was admitted a scholar of Winchester School in 1770. He matriculated at The Queen's College, Oxford, and on 9 May 1775, was elected a demy of Magdalen College, Oxford in 1776. He graduated B.A. on 20 January 1779, and commenced M.A. on 9 November 1781. He became a probationer fellow of Magdalen College in 1782, and senior dean of arts in 1791.

#3929

John Cary

Sir John Cary , of Devon, was a judge who rose to the position of Chief Baron of the Exchequer and served twice as Member of Parliament for Devon, on both occasions together with his brother, Sir William Cary, in 1363/64 and 1368/69.

#3930

Elsa Schiaparelli

Elsa Schiaparelli

1890 - 1973 (83 years)

Elsa Schiaparelli was an Italian fashion designer from an aristocratic background. She created the house of Schiaparelli in Paris in 1927, which she managed from the 1930s to the 1950s. Starting with knitwear, Schiaparelli's designs celebrated Surrealism and eccentric fashions. Her collections were famous for unconventional and artistic themes like the human body, insects, or trompe-l'œil, and for the use of bright colors like her "shocking pink".

#3931

Richard White of Basingstoke

Richard White of Basingstoke

1539 - 1611 (72 years)

Richard White was an English jurist and historian, in later life an expatriate scholar who became a Catholic priest. Life He was son of Henry White of Basingstoke, Hampshire, who died at the siege of Boulogne in 1544. His mother was Agnes, daughter of Richard Capelin of Hampshire. He was born at Basingstoke, entered Winchester School in 1553, and was admitted perpetual fellow of New College, Oxford, in 1557. He took the degree of B.A. on 30 May 1559. On the advice of John Boxall he travelled abroad to study law; his fellowship was declared void in 1564.

#3932

Charles Lynch

1783 - 1853 (70 years)

Charles Lynch was a Democratic and Whig politician who served as Governor of Mississippi and was a former enslaver. Early life and career Charles Lynch was born in 1783 in either South Carolina or Virginia. He was born into a planter family, and settled as a farmer near Monticello, Mississippi, sometime before 1821, when he was appointed probate judge of Lawrence County, Mississippi. According to the 1820 US Federal Census, Lynch also enslaved seven people.

#3933

Paul B. Zuber

1926 - 1987 (61 years)

Paul B. Zuber was a civil rights attorney who fought against inferior schools for African Americans in New York City's Harlem neighborhood in 1958 and against segregated schools in New York State, New Jersey, and Chicago during the 1960s. He was the first African American tenured professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute . He briefly ran for the Republican nomination in the U.S. presidential campaign of 1964. He was married to illustrator Barbara Zuber.

#3934

Jack Buchanan

1891 - 1957 (66 years)

Walter John Buchanan was a Scottish theatre and film actor, singer, dancer, producer and director. He was known for three decades as the embodiment of the debonair man-about-town in the tradition of George Grossmith Jr., and was described by The Times as "the last of the knuts." He is best known in America for his role in the classic Hollywood musical The Band Wagon in 1953.

#3935

John Wilson

1626 - 1696 (70 years)

John Wilson was an English playwright and lawyer. Life and work He was son of Aaron Wilson, a royalist divine, and was born in London in 1626. He matriculated from Exeter College, Oxford, in 1644, and entered Lincoln's Inn two years later, being called to the bar in 1649. His unswerving support of the royal pretensions recommended him to James, duke of York, through whose influence he became Recorder of Derry about 1681. His Discourse of Monarchy , a tract in favour of the succession of the duke of York, was followed by a "Pindarique" on his coronation. In 1688 he wrote Jus regium Coronae, a learned defence of James's action in dispensing with the penal statutes.

#3936

Thomas Wentworth

1568 - 1628 (60 years)

Thomas Wentworth was an English lawyer and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1604 and 1626. He was a vocal if imprudent defender of the rights of the House of Commons. Wentworth was the third son of Peter Wentworth of Lillingstone Lovell in Oxfordshire, a prominent Puritan leader in Parliament during the reign of Elizabeth I. He was educated at University College, Oxford and became a member of Lincoln's Inn where he was called to the bar in 1594.

#3937

Gaspar de Baeza

1540 - 1569 (29 years)

Gaspar de Baeza was a Spanish humanist, lawyer, translator and writer known during the Spanish Golden Age. He studied law at the University of Granada and University of Salamanca, where he was a pupil of Juan Orozco. He was considered one of the most important jurisconsults of his time, in the wake of the so-called Latin legal humanism practiced in Italy by the famous Andrea Alciato. He practiced as a lawyer in the Royal Chancery of Granada and professor at its university and frequented Alonso de Granada Venegas's tertulia, where he met Hernando de Acuña, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, Juan Latino, Luis Barahona de Soto, Pedro de Padilla, Gregorio Silvestre and Jorge de Montemayor.

#3938

Robert Strachan Wallace

1882 - 1961 (79 years)

Sir Robert Strachan Wallace was an Australian academic, army officer and film censor. Wallace served as the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sydney from 1928 to 1947. He was Australia's chief censor from 1922 to 1927 and served as a member of the Australian Broadcasting Commission from 1932 to 1935.

#3939

Edmund Burke

1809 - 1882 (73 years)

Edmund Burke was an American lawyer, newspaper editor and politician. He served as the United States Commissioner of Patents and as a U.S. Representative from New Hampshire in the 1840s. Early life and career Born in Westminster, Vermont, Burke was the son of Elijah and Grace Burke. He attended the public schools and studied law with Henry Adams Bellows, future Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court. Burke was admitted to the bar in 1826. He began practicing law in Colebrook, New Hampshire before moving to Claremont, New Hampshire in 1833.

#3940

John Ross

1770 - 1834 (64 years)

John Ross , was a Representative to the U.S. Congress from Pennsylvania. Ross studied law in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He was admitted to the bar in 1792 and engaged in practice in Easton, Pennsylvania. He served as a member of the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives in 1800. He was clerk of the orphans’ court and recorder from 1800 to 1803, county register from 1800 to 1809, and burgess of Easton in 1804.

#3941

Richard Sutton

1460 - 1524 (64 years)

Sir Richard Sutton was an English lawyer. He was founder, with William Smyth, bishop of Lincoln, of Brasenose College, Oxford, and the first lay founder of any college. He was born in Sutton, Cheshire, the younger son of Sir William Sutton, a wealthy landowner and master of the hospital at Burton Lazars, Leicestershire. He was a barrister, and in 1499 a member of the privy council. In 1513 he became steward of the monastery of Sion, a house of Brigittine nuns at Isleworth.

#3942

Justus Claproth

Justus Claproth

1728 - 1805 (77 years)

Justus Claproth was a German jurist and inventor of the deinking process of recycled paper. See also German inventors and discoverers

#3943

George S. Patton

George S. Patton

1856 - 1927 (71 years)

George Smith Patton was an American attorney, businessman and politician who served as Los Angeles County District Attorney and the first mayor of San Marino, California. Patton was the son of Susan Thornton Glassell and George S. Patton Sr., a Confederate colonel during the American Civil War. His mother moved to California after his father was killed during the war, and Patton was educated in Los Angeles. He returned to Virginia to attend Virginia Military Institute, from which he graduated in 1877. After studying law at his uncle's firm, he was admitted to the bar and practiced in Los Angeles.

#3944

August Ludwig Schott

1751 - 1787 (36 years)

August Ludwig Schott was a German lawyer and professor. August Ludwig Schott was a lawyer, solicitor and professor for law in Tübingen and later court counselor in Erlangen. Life August Ludwig Schott was the son of Christoph Friedrich Schott, a priest and professor in Tübingen. He studied in Tübingen, matriculated in 1768, then studied law and received a law degree in 1772.

#3945

Charles Hastings Collette

1816 - 1901 (85 years)

Charles Hastings Collette was a British 19th-century solicitor and writer of Protestant popular controversialist apologetics. He was the father of actor Charles Henry Collette and the organizer of the Joseph Mendham library. As a volunteer in the First Middlesex Artillery, he compiled a handbook for drill instruction.

#3946

Frederick Edmund Meredith

Frederick Edmund Meredith

1862 - 1941 (79 years)

Frederick Edmund Meredith was a Canadian lawyer and businessman. He was the 8th Chancellor of Bishop's University; President of the Mount Royal Club; Bâtonnier of the Bar of Montreal; President of the Montreal Victorias for three of their Stanley Cup championships in the late 1890s, and Chief Counsel to the CPR at the inquest into the sinking of RMS Empress of Ireland.

#3947

John Simpson

John Simpson was a United States Army officer, attorney, and politician. Simpson saw military action in both the Northwest Indian War and the War of 1812. He also served 4 terms in the Kentucky House of Representatives including 2 years as the House's Speaker. In 1812 he was elected to the United States House of Representatives but died before he could take office.

#3948

James Thompson

1806 - 1874 (68 years)

James Thompson was a lawyer, politician and jurist from Pennsylvania. He served in the United States Congress and in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, where he was Speaker in 1835. He also served as a federal judge and as a member of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

#3949

Jack Cassidy

1927 - 1976 (49 years)

John Joseph Edward Cassidy was an American actor, singer and theater director known for his work in the theater, television and films. He received multiple Tony Award nominations and a win, as well as a Grammy Award, for his work on the Broadway production of the musical She Loves Me. He also received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations. He was the father of teen idols David Cassidy and Shaun Cassidy.

#3950

John James McCook

1843 - 1927 (84 years)

John James McCook, Jr. was a chaplain in the Union Army during the American Civil War, and postbellum lawyer, professor, and theologian. He was a member of the Fighting McCooks, a family of Ohioans who contributed 15 members to the Union army.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions