The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.
List of the most influential people in Law,
#3951
Baldus de Ubaldis
1327 - 1400 (73 years)
Baldus de Ubaldis was an Italian jurist, and a leading figure in Medieval Roman Law and the school of Postglossators. Life A member of the noble family of the Ubaldi , Baldus was born at Perugia in 1327, and studied civil law there under Bartolus de Saxoferrato, being admitted to the degree of doctor of civil law at the early age of seventeen. Federicus Petrucius of Siena is said to have been the master under whom he studied canon law.
Go to Profile#3952
Ernst Rabel
1874 - 1955 (81 years)
Ernst Rabel was an Austrian-born American scholar of Roman law, German private law, and comparative law, who, as the founding director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Foreign and International Private Law, in Berlin, achieved international recognition in the period between the World Wars, before being forced into retirement under the Nazi regime, and emigrating to the United States, in 1939. In the field of comparative law his methodological perspectives, particularly as articulated and disseminated by his students, including , , and Max Rheinstein, were influential in the development of ...
Go to Profile#3953
Bert Röling
1906 - 1985 (79 years)
Bernard Victor Aloysius "Bert" Röling was a Dutch jurist and founding father of polemology in the Netherlands. Between 1946 and 1948 he acted as the Dutch representative for the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.
Go to Profile#3954
Aemilius Ludwig Richter
1808 - 1864 (56 years)
Aemilius Ludwig Richter was a German jurist. Biography He was born at Stolpen, Saxony, and educated at Leipzig. His Corpus Juris Canonici led to his being appointed professor of law in Leipzig, and he held subsequently similar positions at the universities of Marburg and Berlin . He also served as councilor-in-chief of the consistory and privy councilor of the government.
Go to Profile#3955
Marguerite Frick-Cramer
1887 - 1963 (76 years)
Marguerite "Meggy" Frick-Cramer , born Renée-Marguerite Cramer, was a Swiss legal scholar, historian, and humanitarian activist. She was the first woman to sit on the governing body of an international organization, when she was made a member of the board of the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1918.
Go to Profile#3956
Sayyed Ibn Tawus
1193 - 1266 (73 years)
Sayyed Radhi ud-Deen Ali ibn Musa ibn Tawus al Hasani wal Husaini commonly called Sayyed Ibn Tawus was a Shiite jurist, theologian, historian and astrologer. He was a descendant of Hasan ibn Ali through his father and a descendant of Husain ibn Ali through his mother. It is said that he met the twelfth Shiite imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, who according to Shiites is living in occultation. He is known for his library and his numerous works which are still available in their original form and help us learn about the interests of Muslim scholars at the end of the Abbasid era.
Go to Profile#3957
Perry Ellis
1940 - 1986 (46 years)
Perry Edwin Ellis was an American fashion designer who founded his eponymous sportswear house in the mid-1970s. Ellis' influence on the fashion industry has been called "a huge turning point" because he introduced new patterns and proportions to a market which was dominated by more traditional men's clothing.
Go to Profile#3958
Heman Marion Sweatt
1912 - 1982 (70 years)
Heman Marion Sweatt was an African-American civil rights activist who confronted Jim Crow laws. He is best known for the Sweatt v. Painter lawsuit, which challenged the "separate but equal" doctrine and was one of the earliest of the events that led to the desegregation of American higher education.
Go to Profile#3959
José Caeiro da Mata
1877 - 1963 (86 years)
Dr. José Caeiro da Mata was a Portuguese jurist, professor of law and politician. Mata began his career in 1907 as a Professor at the University of Coimbra, before transferring to the University of Lisbon in 1919. He held several public and administrative positions in Lisbon and was rector of the University from 1929 to 1946. He was a deputy judge in the Permanent Court of International Justice from 1931 to 1936. Under the Estado Novo, he served twice as the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of National Education .
Go to Profile#3960
Wilhelm Ebel
1908 - 1980 (72 years)
Wilhelm Ebel was a scholar of Early Germanic law, known for editing and translating a number of law codes. During the Third Reich he was a committed Nazi, with military, administrative, and research service in the SS, and his academic career was interrupted by imprisonment after the end of World War II.
Go to Profile#3961
Thomas Frederick Crane
1844 - 1927 (83 years)
Thomas Frederick Crane was an American folklorist, academic and lawyer. He studied law at Princeton, earned his undergraduate degree in 1864, and in 1867 graduated with an A.M. He then studied law at Columbia Law School but moved to Ithaca when a relative there became ill. He was admitted to the bar and worked as a lawyer in the community and as a librarian for newly founded Cornell University. He went on to become a student of languages, and was offered a faculty position by President A.D. White and taught French, Italian, Spanish, and medieval literature. He was among the founders of the Journal of American Folklore.
Go to Profile#3962
Carl Jacob Arnholm
1899 - 1976 (77 years)
Carl Jacob Arnholm was a Norwegian jurist. He was born in Oslo as a son of civil servant Carsten Johannes Andersen and Gunvor Henriksen . He finished his secondary education in Kristiania in 1917, and graduated with the cand.jur. degree in 1921. After one year as deputy judge he worked as a junior solicitor from 1923. From 1927 he was entitled to work with Supreme Court cases. In 1930 he was hired as research fellow at the Royal Frederick University, and took the dr.juris degree already in 1931, on the thesis Betingelsene for testamenters gyldighet efter norsk rett. He was then a professor from 1933 to 1968.
Go to Profile#3963
Pietro Germi
1914 - 1974 (60 years)
Pietro Germi was an Italian film director, screenwriter, and actor, noted for his development of the neorealist and genres. His 1961 film Divorce Italian Style earned him a Best Original Screenplay Oscar and a Best Director nomination at the 35th Academy Awards. Seven of his films competed at the Cannes Film Festival, with his 1966 comedy The Birds, the Bees and the Italians winning the .
Go to Profile#3964
Carl Andreas Duker
1670 - 1752 (82 years)
Carl Andreas Duker was a German classical scholar and jurist. Biography He was born at Unna in Westphalia, and studied at the University of Franeker under Jacob Perizonius. In 1700 he was appointed teacher of history and eloquence at the Herborn gymnasium, in 1704 vice-principal of the school at The Hague, and in 1716 he succeeded to the professorship formerly held by Peter Burmann at Utrecht. After eighteen years' tenure he resigned his post, and lived in retirement at IJsselstein and Vianen. His health finally broke down under excessive study, and he died, almost blind, at the house of a r...
Go to Profile#3965
Benedikt Carpzov Jr.
1595 - 1666 (71 years)
Benedikt Carpzov the Younger was a German criminal lawyer and a witchcraft theoretician who wrote extensively on witch processes. His 1635 work Practica Rerum Criminalium dealt with the trial of those accused of witchcraft, supporting the use of torture to extract confessions from the accused; as many as 20,000 people may have been killed as a consequence of his efforts. Carpzov is considered the founder of the German jurisprudence. He is also known under pen-name Ludovicus de Montesperato.
Go to Profile#3967
Seweryn Wysłouch
1900 - 1968 (68 years)
Seweryn Wysłouch was a legal historian and vice-rector of Wrocław University. Biography Seweryn was born in Pirkowicze near Drohiczyn , the Wysłouch family manor. In 1927 he graduated from the School of Law and Social Sciences of the Stefan Batory University in Vilnius and began to work there as an academic. His career was interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War, but he continued it from 1945 at the University of Wrocław as a professor. During the years of 1947 to 1952 he was the vice-rector of the university and from 1956 to 1958 he headed its School of Law
Go to Profile#3968
Justus Henning Böhmer
1674 - 1749 (75 years)
Justus Henning Böhmer was an outstanding German jurist, ecclesiastical jurist, Professor of the University of Halle and also Geheimer Rat, count palatine and chancellor of the Duchy of Magdeburg. Career After his time at school in Hanover Justus Henning Böhmer studied law at the University of Jena since 1693. He attended judicial lectures inter alia with Professor Nikolaus Christoph Lyncker and also lectures in philosophy and theology. Initially after his first dissertation he was acted as an advocate in his hometown Hanover, but this employment did not meet his demands.
Go to Profile#3969
James A. Baker
1857 - 1941 (84 years)
James Addison Baker was an American attorney and banker in Houston, Texas. He was born James Addison Baker, Junior, and "Junior" appeared in his signature for many years. After the death of his father in 1897, he started signing his name "Captain James A. Baker," and from that point on people referred to him as Captain Baker.
Go to Profile#3970
Josephine Clara Goldmark
1877 - 1950 (73 years)
Josephine Clara Goldmark was an advocate of labor law reform in the United States during the early 20th century. Her work against child labor and for wages-and-hours legislation was influential in the passage of the Keating–Owen Act in 1916 and the later Fair Labor Standards Act of 1937.
Go to Profile#3971
John Budd Phear
1825 - 1905 (80 years)
Sir John Budd Phear was a judge and author who was the 13th Chief Justice of Ceylon. He was appointed on 18 October 1877 succeeding William Hackett and was Chief Justice until 1879. He was succeeded by Richard Cayley. When Phear retired Harry Dias Bandaranaike acted as Chief Justice for 12 days.
Go to Profile#3972
William Sharp McKechnie
1863 - 1930 (67 years)
William Sharp McKechnie was a Scottish scholar, historian, lecturer in Constitutional Law and History, and author of Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John with an Historical Introduction. He later held the Chair of Conveyancing at the University of Glasgow from 1916 until 1927. Upon his retirement, he was awarded an honorary LL.D.
Go to Profile#3973
Vladimir Grabar
1865 - 1956 (91 years)
Vladimir Emmanuilovich Grabar — was a Russian and Soviet jurist. The brother of painter Igor Grabar, and the husband of philologue and translator Maria Grabar-Passek. He is one of the leading specialists in international law of the pre-revolutionary and post-Revolutionary Soviet period. Grabar was held a number of leading posts during his impressive and broad career, including: professor of international law, academician, dean, legal advisor to the Imperial Russian government and the Soviet state, internationally recognized jurist and historian. His academic and professional career encompassed the last decades of the Russian empire and the first four decades of the Soviet period.
Go to Profile#3974
Charles Lyon-Caen
1843 - 1935 (92 years)
Charles-Léon Lyon-Caen was a French jurist. Biography Doctor of law in 1866, then agrégé in 1867, he became professor of law the same year at the Faculty of Law of Nancy, then of Paris in 1872. He also teaches at the École libre des sciences politiques and at the École des hautes études commerciales in Paris. He became "assesseur du doyen" in 1901, then dean of the Faculty of Law of Paris in 1906.
Go to Profile#3975
E. J. P. Jorissen
1829 - 1912 (83 years)
Eduard Johan Pieter Jorissen was a Dutch lawyer and politician. He graduated in theology and served as State Attorney of the South African Republic from 1876 to 1877 under Thomas François Burgers.
Go to Profile#3976
Salvatore Satta
1902 - 1975 (73 years)
Salvatore Satta was an Italian jurist and writer. He is famous for the novel The Day of Judgment , and for several important studies on civil law. Biography He was the youngest son of notary Salvatore Satta and Antonietta Galfrè, and relative of Sebastiano Satta. After attending the Liceo classico in Nuoro and Sassari, he graduated in law in 1924 at the University of Sassari. He is considered one of Italy's foremost jurists, in particular for his works on the Italian civil code after the second world war, and one of the greatest Sardinian authors.
Go to Profile#3977
Charlie Wilson
1932 - 1990 (58 years)
Charles Frederick Wilson was an English career criminal. A member of the Great Train Robbery gang, of which he was treasurer, he was shot dead on the doorstep of his Marbella home in 1990. Early life Wilson was born on 30 June 1932 to Bill and Mabel Wilson in Battersea, London. Of heavy build and handsome appearance, with piercing blue eyes, Wilson was, from an early age, an intimidating presence. His friends from childhood included Jimmy Hussey, Tommy Wisbey, Bruce Reynolds and Gordon Goody. Later on, he met Buster Edwards and two car thieves, Mickey Ball and Roy James.
Go to Profile#3978
Louis-Joseph Papineau
1786 - 1871 (85 years)
Louis-Joseph Papineau , born in Montreal, Quebec, was a politician, lawyer, and the landlord of the seigneurie de la Petite-Nation. He was the leader of the reformist Patriote movement before the Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837–1838. His father was Joseph Papineau, also a politician in Quebec. Papineau was the eldest of eight children and was the grandfather of the journalist Henri Bourassa, founder of the newspaper Le Devoir.
Go to Profile#3979
Roland Michener
1900 - 1991 (91 years)
Daniel Roland Michener was a Canadian lawyer, politician, and diplomat who served as Governor General of Canada, the 20th since Canadian Confederation. Michener was born and educated in Alberta. In 1917 he served briefly in the Royal Air Force. He acquired a university degree, then attended the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. Michener then returned to Canada and practised law before entering politics. He was elected to the House of Commons in 1957, where he served as speaker until 1962, and then served in diplomatic postings between 1964 and 1967. After that he was appointed Governor General by Queen Elizabeth II on the recommendation of Prime Minister of Canada Lester B.
Go to Profile#3980
Petru Th. Missir
1856 - 1929 (73 years)
Petru Th. Missir was a Romanian literary critic, journalist and jurist. Born in Roman, Principality of Moldavia, into a family of ethnic Armenian merchants, he graduated from Iași's National College in 1873. While a student at the University of Vienna's law faculty, he entered and became secretary of the România jună society. He later studied law at Berlin University, where he earned a doctorate in 1879. A member of Junimea, he also served as the organization's attorney; he was both a lifelong friend to Ion Luca Caragiale and close to Titu Maiorescu and Petre P. Carp. After working as a magis...
Go to Profile#3981
Johann Georg Estor
1699 - 1773 (74 years)
Johann Georg Estor , was a German theorist of public law, historian and book collector. Life Estor was born in Schweinsberg and educated at the universities of Gießen, Halle, and Jena. He became professor of history and law first in Giessen, then in Jena. He moved to the University of Marburg in 1742. As professor in Giessen he learned natural history from his colleague Joahnn Melchior Verdrieß and became national geographer of the county of Hessen-Darmstadt. In this time he came in contact with the famous geographer and physicist Johann Jakob Scheuchzer.
Go to Profile#3982
Caesar Wright
1904 - 1967 (63 years)
Cecil Augustus Wright , often called Caesar Wright, was a Canadian jurist and law professor. He was among the first law professors to import the Harvard case method into Canadian legal education. He was also known for his confrontational and aggressive personality.
Go to Profile#3983
Oliver Wendell Holmes
#3984
Monty Banks
1897 - 1950 (53 years)
Montague Banks was a 20th century Italian-born American comedian, film actor, director and producer who achieved success in the United States and Britain. Career Banks was born Mario Bianchi in Cesena, Italy. In 1914, Bianchi emigrated to the United States, first trying his luck on the New York stage. By 1918, he was an actor in Hollywood with the Arbuckle Company, performing in over 35 silent short comedies by the early 1920s, and then, starring in feature-length action comedy-thrillers as Play Safe . .
Go to Profile#3985
Nicolaus Hieronymus Gundling
1671 - 1729 (58 years)
Nicolaus Hieronymus Gundling , was a German jurist and eclectic philosopher. He was born in Kirchensittenbach, and died in Magdeburg. He was the brother of Jacob Paul von Gundling, Court Historiographer to King Frederick I of Prussia, who became a figure of ridicule in the "Tobacco Cabinet" of Frederick William I.
Go to Profile#3986
Ignacio Jordán Claudio de Asso y del Río
1742 - 1814 (72 years)
Ignacio Jordán Claudio de Asso y del Río was a Spanish diplomat, naturalist, lawyer and historian. He sometimes used the pseudonym of Melchor de Azagra. Biography Of noble birth, he received an excellent education, studying Classical Greek and Latin in the college known as the Escuelas Pías of Zaragoza and philosophy under the Jesuits at the Real e Imperial Colegio de Nobles de Nuestra Señora y Santiago de Cordellas, located in Barcelona . He studied at the University of Cervera, where he graduated with a bachelor of arts in 1760, and at the University of Zaragoza, where he studied jurispru...
Go to Profile#3987
Bettina d'Andrea
Bettina d'Andrea was an Italian legal scholar and professor in law and philosophy at the University of Padua. As the daughter of Giovanni d'Andrea, professor in Canon law at the University of Bologna, she was educated by her father. She married Giovanni di San Giorgio, a professor at the University of Padua, and became active there as his colleague.
Go to Profile#3988
Juan de Solórzano Pereira
1575 - 1655 (80 years)
Juan de Solórzano Pereira was a Spanish jurist who became oidor of Lima and was an early writer on the colonial law of the Spanish empire in the Americas. Works Disputatio de Indiarum jure sive de justa Indiarum occidentalium inquisitione .Disputationum de Indiarum iure, sive de iusta Indiarum occidentalium gubernatione .Politica indiana: sacado en lengua castellana de los dos tomos del derecho; govierno municipal de las Indias Occidentales .Emblemata centum regio-politica .
Go to Profile#3989
Samuel Parr
1747 - 1825 (78 years)
Samuel Parr , was an English schoolmaster, writer, minister and Doctor of Law. He was known in his time for political writing, and as "the Whig Johnson", though his reputation has lasted less well than Samuel Johnson's, and the resemblances were at a superficial level; Parr was no prose stylist, even if he was an influential literary figure. A prolific correspondent, he kept up with many of his pupils, and involved himself widely in intellectual and political life.
Go to Profile#3990
Denis Godefroy
1549 - 1622 (73 years)
Denis Godefroy was a French jurist, a member of the noted Godefroy family. He worked in France and Germany. Biography He was born in Paris, the son of Léon Godefroy, lord of Guignecourt. He was educated at the Collège de Navarre, and studied law at Louvain, Cologne, and Heidelberg, returning to Paris in 1573. He embraced the reformed religion, and in 1579 left Paris, where his abilities and connections promised a brilliant career, to establish himself at Geneva. He became professor of law there, received the freedom of the city in 1580 and in 1587 became a member of the Council of the Two Hundred.
Go to Profile#3991
John Mercer Langston
1829 - 1897 (68 years)
John Mercer Langston was an American abolitionist, attorney, educator, activist, diplomat, and politician. He was the founding dean of the law school at Howard University and helped create the department. He was the first president of what is now Virginia State University, a historically black college. He was elected a U.S. Representative from Virginia and wrote From the Virginia Plantation to the National Capitol; Or, the First and Only Negro Representative in Congress From the Old Dominion.
Go to Profile#3992
Vaclovas Biržiška
1884 - 1956 (72 years)
Vaclovas Biržiška was a Lithuanian attorney, bibliographer, and educator. He was a member of a notable Lithuanian family; his great-grandfather Mykolas Biržiška was a representative in the Sejm of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth when the Constitution of 3 May 1791 was accepted; his grandfather Leonardas Biržiška was an active participant in the November Uprising; and his brothers, Mykolas Biržiška and Viktoras Biržiška, were also leaders of the Lithuanian community. His father, the physician Antanas Biržiška, declined a professorship at the University of Moscow to practice medicine in the ...
Go to Profile#3993
William Welwod
1578 - 1622 (44 years)
William Welwod was a Scottish jurist who was the first to formulate the laws of the sea in an insular Germanic language. He was a professor of civil law at the University of St Andrews until 1611, when he resigned his chair and moved to England.
Go to Profile#3994
Fred Rodell
1907 - 1980 (73 years)
Fred Rodell was an American law professor most famous for his critiques of the U.S. legal profession. A professor at Yale Law School for more than forty years, Rodell was described in 1980 as the "bad boy of American legal academia" by Charles Alan Wright.
Go to Profile#3995
Vespasian Pella
1897 - 1952 (55 years)
Vespasian V. Pella was a Romanian international law expert. Legal career and opinions During the interwar period, he promoted the notion of international criminal proceedings against heads of state found guilty of crimes against humanity by the establishment of a special international tribunal for that purpose. In 1938 he served as President of the Committee on Legal Questions of the League of Nations.
Go to Profile#3996
Ernst Levy
1881 - 1968 (87 years)
Ernst Levy was a German American legal scholar and historian of law. He was a Professor of Roman Law at the Goethe University Frankfurt and the University of Heidelberg . Being Jewish, he was forced to retire in 1935, and decided to emigrate from Nazi Germany to the United States. At the University of Washington, he was a Professor of Law and History from 1937 to 1952.
Go to Profile#3997
Anatoly Koni
1844 - 1927 (83 years)
Anatoly Fedorovich Koni was a Russian jurist, judge, politician and writer. He was the most politically influential jurist of the late Russian Empire and a leading Russian liberal. Anatoly Koni was the son of the noted dramatist Fyodor Koni. Among the public offices Koni held was prosecutor at the district court of Kharkov since 1867, vice director of the Ministry of Justice since 1875, presiding judge of the district court of Saint Petersburg since 1878, and member of the State Council since 1907. He taught at the Imperial School of Law and at the University of Saint Petersburg.
Go to Profile#3998
Yap Thiam Hien
1913 - 1989 (76 years)
John Yap Thiam Hien was an Indonesian human rights lawyer. Life Born in Kutaraja, Aceh, Dutch East Indies, his father was Yap Sin Eng and his mother was Hwan Tjing Nio. Yap's family, living in genteel but reduced circumstances, was part of the Cabang Atas or the local Chinese gentry; through his father, Yap was a great-grandson of Yap A Sin, Luitenant der Chinezen of Kutaraja from 1901 until 1922, a high-ranking position in the colonial civil bureaucracy.
Go to Profile#3999
James Muirhead
1831 - 1889 (58 years)
James Muirhead was a 19th century Scottish scholar and Professor of Civil Law at Edinburgh University. He gives his name to the Muirhead Prize in Civil Law at the University. Life James Muirhead was born on at 7 Heriot Row, Edinburgh the eldest of five sons of Claud Muirhead, a printer and publisher of the Edinburgh Advertiser, and his wife Mary Watson. The family also owned the huge Gogar Park estate just west of the city .
Go to Profile#4000
Paul Laymann
1574 - 1635 (61 years)
Paul Laymann was an Austrian Jesuit and important moralist. Laymann was born at Arzl, near Innsbruck. After studying jurisprudence at Ingolstadt, he entered the Society of Jesus there in 1594, was ordained priest in 1603, taught philosophy at the University of Ingolstadt from 1603-9, moral theology at the Jesuit house in Munich from 1609–25, and Canon law at the University of Dillingen from 1625-32. He died of the plague at Konstanz.
Go to Profile