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,
#4351
John Herbert Chapman
1921 - 1979 (58 years)
John Herbert Chapman was a Canadian space researcher. He started his career with his work on radio propagation and the ionosphere. Chapman grew up in London, Ontario, the son of Lt. Col. Lloyd Chapman and Kathleen Chapman. He received his BSc from The University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario in 1948, and later received a Master of Science degree and a Ph.D. in physics at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. After his studies at university, Chapman got his first position in the government with the Defence Research Board . He was then promoted to the position of section leader of the...
Go to Profile#4352
Eric Roberts
1907 - 1972 (65 years)
Eric Arthur Roberts was an MI5 agent during the Second World War under the alias Jack King. By posing as a Gestapo agent and infiltrating fascist groups in the UK, Roberts was able to prevent secret information finding its way to Germany. Roberts continued to work for the security services after the war, particularly in Vienna, but it was a time of great anxiety in the services because of the suspicions surrounding double agents such as the Cambridge spy ring.
Go to Profile#4353
Thomas W. Merrill
#4354
David Hoffman
1784 - 1854 (70 years)
David Hoffman was an American legal scholar. He taught law at the University of Maryland from 1814 to 1843. Hoffman wrote Hoffman's Course of Legal Study, an influential early legal textbook. Hoffman was born in Baltimore on December 24, 1784, the youngest of eight brothers, to Dorothea Stierlin Lloyd and Peter Hoffman. His father, a businessman, had emigrated from Germany to Maryland. He attended St. John's College, but left in 1802 without receiving a degree. In 1816, he married Mary McKean.
Go to Profile#4355
Lewis Morris
1698 - 1762 (64 years)
Lewis Morris Jr. was a colonial American judge, politician and vast landowner who was the 2nd Lord of the Manor of Morrisania. Early life Morris was born on September 23, 1698, at Morrisania, his family's manor in the southwest section of today's Bronx. He was the eldest son of Lewis Morris and Isabella Morris . His younger brother was Robert Hunter Morris, who served as the Deputy governor of New Jersey. His father was very prominent in public life and variously served as Chief Justice of New York and as the 8th Colonial Governor of New Jersey.
Go to Profile#4356
Otto Ludwig Haas-Heye
1879 - 1959 (80 years)
Otto Ludwig Haas-Heye was a German fashion designer, professor at the Unterrichtsanstalt des Kunstgewerbemuseums Berlin and owner of the publishing company Graphik-Verlag. Haas-Heye headed the fashion department of the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Prinz-Albrecht-Straße 8. He was editor at the Graphische Modeblätter.
Go to Profile#4357
Holmes Conrad
1840 - 1915 (75 years)
Holmes Conrad was an American politician, lawyer and military officer. Early life Conrad was born in Winchester, Virginia. He was the son of Robert Young Conrad, a prominent lawyer of Winchester, and state attorney general from 1857 to 1862; his mother was Elizabeth Whiting, daughter of Burr Powell. After attending the Virginia Military Institute, Conrad proceeded in 1858 to the University of Virginia.
Go to Profile#4358
George L. Paddison
1883 - 1954 (71 years)
George Lucas Paddison was an American assistant professor, lawyer, and sales supervisor. Biography Paddison was born in Burgaw, North Carolina on August 9, 1883. He studied chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1905. He studied further at Kentucky State University and received a Master's degree in Chemistry. Afterwards Paddison taught as assistant professor of Chemistry at the University of Mississippi while he earned a degree in law. Upon completing his law degree, Paddison practiced law in Greenwood, Mississippi for five years. In 191...
Go to Profile#4359
Wolfgang Hirschbach
1570 - 1620 (50 years)
Wolfgang Hirschbach was a German legal scholar. Life Wolfgang was the son of mayor Christoph Hirschbach and his wife Anna, who was the daughter merchant Hieronymus Poppe from Gotha. Hirschbach lost his mother at the age of three. He attended the Latin school in Gotha, which was under the direction John Helders who later became Gotha's superintendent. There Hirschbach acquired a solid education and insight and experience that had a lasting impact on his character and formed way of living. He was intended to follow an academic career from an early age. This explains his enrollment at the University of Jena in 1585.
Go to Profile#4360
Lawrence Maxwell Jr.
1853 - 1927 (74 years)
Lawrence Maxwell Jr. was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 8th Solicitor General of the United States. Biography Lawrence Maxwell Jr. was born in Glasgow, Scotland on May 4, 1853. After immigrating to America, Maxwell graduated from the University of Michigan in 1874. In addition, he received an honorary masters and law degree from the university, in 1893 and 1904, respectively. In 1875, Maxwell graduated from Cincinnati Law School and was admitted to the bar. Following his admission, he practiced law in Cincinnati up until March 30, 1893, when he was appointed by President ...
Go to Profile#4361
Nicol Stenhouse
1806 - 1873 (67 years)
Nicol Drysdale Stenhouse was a Scottish-born lawyer, writer and literary patron in colonial Australia. Stenhouse was born in Coldstream, Berwickshire, Scotland and was a writer of taste and a great lover of literature. He was clerk to Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet when the latter was practising as an advocate in Edinburgh. He was also a friend of Thomas De Quincey. Having embraced the legal profession, he emigrated to New South Wales, and practised for many years as an attorney and solicitor in Sydney. He was a veritable Mæcenas to many needy and struggling literary men in Sydney. Not long before his death he was, on the motion of that great scholar, Dr.
Go to Profile#4362
Francesco Accolti
1416 - 1488 (72 years)
Francesco Accolti , also called Francesco d'Arezzo, was an Italian jurist. The brother of Benedetto Accolti, he professed jurisprudence at Bologna from 1440 to 1445, and afterwards at Ferrara, Siena, and Pisa.
Go to Profile#4363
George H. Pendleton
1825 - 1889 (64 years)
George Hunt Pendleton was an American politician and lawyer. He represented Ohio in both houses of Congress and was the unsuccessful Democratic nominee for Vice President of the United States in 1864.
Go to Profile#4364
John Slidell
1793 - 1871 (78 years)
John Slidell was an American politician, lawyer, and businessman. A native of New York, Slidell moved to Louisiana as a young man and became a Representative and Senator. He was one of two Confederate diplomats captured by the United States Navy from the British ship RMS Trent in 1861 and later released. He was the older brother of Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, a US naval officer.
Go to Profile#4365
Robert Heath
1575 - 1649 (74 years)
Sir Robert Heath was an English judge and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1621 to 1625. Early life Heath was the son of Robert Heath, attorney, and Anne Posyer. He was educated at Tunbridge grammar school , St John's College, Cambridge from age 14 and Clifford's Inn from age 17. He became a barrister of the Inner Temple in 1603.
Go to Profile#4366
John Bell Keeble
1868 - 1929 (61 years)
John Bell Keeble was an American attorney and academic administrator. He represented the Louisville and Nashville Railroad for 28 years, and he served as the dean of the Vanderbilt University Law School from 1915 to 1929.
Go to Profile#4367
Olin B. Lewis
1861 - 1936 (75 years)
Olin Bailey Lewis was an American politician and educator. Biography Lewis was born on March 12, 1861, in Weyauwega, Wisconsin. In 1879, he graduated from Omro High School in Omro, Wisconsin. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1884 and the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1889. In 1885, he married Della Barnett. They had three children. Lewis was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Go to Profile#4368
William Fraser Tytler
1777 - 1853 (76 years)
William Fraser Tytler of Balnain FRSE was a 19th-century Scottish lawyer and historian. Life He was born at Campbells Close on the Grassmarket in Edinburgh on 10 September 1777 the son of Anne Fraser of Balnain and Alexander Fraser Tytler. He was the grandson of William Tytler of Woodhouselee.
Go to Profile#4369
Guido Panciroli
1523 - 1599 (76 years)
Guido Panciroli or Pancirolli was a sixteenth-century Italian antiquarian, historian, jurist and law professor at Ferrara, Padua and Turin. In his time he was renowned as a legal scholar, teaching students who came from all around Europe. Posthumously, he was well known for his innovative comparative survey, Rerum memorabilium, iam olim deperditarum, that brought attention to the loss of knowledge since the ancient world.
Go to Profile#4370
Nicholas White
1532 - 1592 (60 years)
Sir Nicholas White was an Irish lawyer, judge, privy councillor and government official during the reign of Elizabeth I. Background and early career White was descended from a noted family of The Pale. His father, James White of Waterford, who was the steward of the earl of Ormond, had been poisoned while in London, as was the earl, in 1546. Nicholas owed his early advancement to Ormond's influence: in recognition of James's loyalty, the earl left £10 for the boy's education at the Inns of Court. White entered Lincoln's Inn in 1552, and he was called to the Bar in 1558; during the course of his studies he was a tutor to the children of Sir William Cecil, later Lord Burghley.
Go to Profile#4371
Howard Lindsay
1889 - 1968 (79 years)
Howard Lindsay, born Herman Nelke, was an American playwright, librettist, director, actor and theatrical producer. He is best known for his writing work as part of the collaboration of Lindsay and Crouse, and for his performance, with his wife Dorothy Stickney, in the long-running play Life with Father.
Go to Profile#4372
John Macdonell
1846 - 1921 (75 years)
Sir John Macdonell was a British jurist. He was King's Remembrancer and invested as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath. Shaw of Dunfermline gives a prefatory biography in Historical Trials.
Go to Profile#4373
Odofredus
1200 - 1265 (65 years)
Odofredus was an Italian jurist. He was born in Ostia and moved to Bologna, studying law under Jacobus Balduinus and Franciscus Accursius. After working as an advocate in Italy and France, he became a law professor in Bologna in 1228. The commentaries on Roman law attributed to him are valuable as showing the growth of the study of law in Italy, and for their biographical details of the jurists of the 12th and 13th centuries. Odofredus died at Bologna in 1265.
Go to Profile#4374
Christian Dior
1905 - 1957 (52 years)
Christian Ernest Dior was a French fashion designer, best known as the founder of one of the world's top fashion houses, Christian Dior SE. His fashion houses are known all around the world, having gained prominence "on five continents in only a decade."
Go to Profile#4375
Joachim von Beust
1522 - 1597 (75 years)
Joachim von Beust was a 16th-century German lawyer and legal author. His most important contribution was in 1586 when he wrote the Saxon Protestant Marriage Law. Life He was born in Mockern near Magdeburg on 19 April 1522 the eldest son of Captain Joachim von Beust. The family had major estates in the stendal district. From 1539 he began studying Law and the Liberal Arts at the University of Leipzig. In Leipzig he first encountered Martin Luther and came under his influence. In 1544 he went to Italy at the invitation of Modestinus Pistoris. In 1547 he did further studies in Law at the Univer...
Go to Profile#4376
Karl Witte
1800 - 1883 (83 years)
Johann Heinrich Friedrich Karl Witte was a German jurist and scholar of Dante Alighieri. Biography Karl Witte was the son of pastor Karl Heinrich Gottfried Witte who encouraged a fairly intense program of learning. When Karl Witte was nine, he spoke German, French, Italian, Latin, and Greek, and on April 10, 1814, at the age of 13, he became a doctor of philosophy at the University of Giessen in Germany. As a result, Witte was listed in The Guinness Book of World Records as the "youngest doctorate", a record that still stands; however, The Guinness Book of World Records lists his age as 12.
Go to Profile#4377
Hilde Kaufmann
1920 - 1981 (61 years)
Hilde Kaufmann was a German jurist and criminologist. From 1966 to 1970, she was a professor at the University of Kiel, then from 1970 until her death a professor and director of the Criminological Research Center at the University of Cologne. Her main scientific subject was the orientation of criminology to the needs of criminal science and criminal justice.
Go to Profile#4378
William Warren
1879 - 1927 (48 years)
William Robertson Warren was a Newfoundland lawyer, politician and judge who served as the dominion's Prime Minister from July 1923 to April 1924. Early life His parents were William Matthew Henry Warren, a surveyor, and Jessie Sophia Warren. He had at least one sibling, a sister, Alice Mary Warren , who was married to Robert Brown Job, President of Job Brothers & Co., Limited.
Go to Profile#4379
Johann Friedrich Ludwig Volckmann
1758 - 1815 (57 years)
Johann Friedrich Ludwig Volckmann was a German theologian, lawyer and animal rights writer. Volckmann studied theology and law in Leipzig. He worked in his hometown of Arnstadt as a bailiff and later as a government and court advocate. In 1794, he founded the Verein der Literaturfreunde zu Arnstadt .
Go to Profile#4380
Charles Murray, Lord Murray
1866 - 1936 (70 years)
Charles David Murray, Lord Murray, was a Scottish Tory politician, lawyer and judge. He became Lord Advocate in 1922. Life He was born in London the son of David William Murray, a merchant. Murray was educated at Edinburgh Academy and then studied aw at the University of Edinburgh, was admitted as an advocate in 1889 and appointed a King's Counsel in 1909. He was a Major in the Fourth Division of the Royal Engineers , resigning in 1907. He was on the War Office staff from 1915 to 1917, and was appointed a temporary Lieutenant Colonel and Director of National Service for Scotland in 1917. He was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1918.
Go to Profile#4381
William Allen Montgomery
1829 - 1905 (76 years)
William Allen Montgomery was an American lawyer, planter and Baptist minister. Trained as a lawyer in Tennessee, he was a cotton planter in Texas in the 1850s and served as a Confederate chaplain in the American Civil War. He served as the President of Carson–Newman University from 1888 to 1892.
Go to Profile#4382
Charles Hope, Lord Granton
1763 - 1851 (88 years)
Charles Hope, The Rt Hon. the Lord Granton FRSE was a Scottish politician and judge. Life Hope was born on 29 June 1763, the eldest son of Mary Breton, the only daughter of Eliab Breton of Forty Hill, Enfield and John Hope, Member of Parliament for Linlithgowshire, and a grandson of Charles Hope, 1st Earl of Hopetoun. He was educated at Enfield Grammar School, and later at the Edinburgh High School, where in 1777 he was the Latin dux. After studying law at the University of Edinburgh he was admitted as an advocate on 11 December 1784, and on 25 March 1786 was appointed a Deputy Advocate.
Go to Profile#4383
John Ross
1818 - 1871 (53 years)
John Ross was a Canadian lawyer, politician, and businessman. Born in County Antrim, Ireland, he was brought to Canada as an infant. Ross married twice, first to Margaret Crawford who died in 1847, secondly to Augusta Elizabeth Baldwin February 4, 1851, the daughter of Robert Baldwin. Ross was president of the Grand Trunk Railway from 1853 to 1862 when he was succeeded by Sir Edward William Watkin. In 1867, he was appointed to the Senate representing the senatorial division of Ontario. A Conservative, the Honourable John Ross served until his death in 1871 in Toronto, Ontario.
Go to Profile#4384
Victoria Conkling-Whitney
1859 - Present (167 years)
Victoria Conkling-Whitney was the first woman attorney to practice before the St. Louis Court of Appeals. She said she studied law in self-defense, and urged all women to devote some time to this helpful branch of education. She organized the Woman's State Bar Association, when she was elected president. It was the first organization of its kind in the West, and the object was educational and for mutual improvement in the profession.
Go to Profile#4385
Fazio Cardano
1444 - 1524 (80 years)
Fazio Cardano was an Italian jurist and mathematician. He was a student of perspective. Cardano was also a professor at the University of Pavia, and was devoted to hermetical science and the world of the occult. He was a friend of Leonardo da Vinci.
Go to Profile#4386
Edward Smith
1602 - 1682 (80 years)
Sir Edward Smith or Smythe was an English-born politician, barrister and judge who held the offices of Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas and judge of the Irish Court of Claims. Family He was the second son of Edward Smythe, a barrister of Middle Temple, and his wife Katherine. The family's earlier history is uncertain, although it has been suggested that they were related to the Smythe Baronets of Eshe Hall, Durham, and also to Sir Thomas Smith , who was Secretary of State to Elizabeth I. Edward's sister, Arabella, described as "a lady of surpassing beauty and charm", married against bo...
Go to Profile#4387
Douglas Baird
1877 - 1963 (86 years)
General Sir Harry Beauchamp Douglas Baird was a British officer in the British Indian Army. Early life and education Baird was born in Kensington, London, the son of Scottish Colonel Andrew Wilson Baird and Margaret Elizabeth Davidson. He was educated at Clifton College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.
Go to Profile#4388
John Thompson
1908 - 1986 (78 years)
John William McLeod Thompson was a lawyer, politician and judge in Manitoba, Canada. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1953 to 1962 as a Progressive Conservative, and held several cabinet posts in the government of Dufferin Roblin.
Go to Profile#4389
Alexander Haddow
1907 - 1976 (69 years)
Sir Alexander Haddow FRS FRSE was a Scottish physician and pathologist at the forefront of cancer research in the 1940s. He served as Director of the Institute of Cancer Research from 1946 to 1969. He was also President of the Universal Union Against Cancer.
Go to Profile#4390
Karel Lamač
1897 - 1952 (55 years)
Karel Lamač was a Czech film director, actor, screenwriter, producer and singer. He directed more than 100 films in Czechoslovakia, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Life Lamač was born 27 January 1897 in Prague, Austria-Hungary. His parents were Karel Lamač sr. , opera singer and a pharmacist, and Františka Lamačová . In his childhood Lamač was interested in pharmacy, electrical engineering, stage magic and acting. Before WWI he went to apprentice in camera manufacturer company Ernemann in Dresden. During the war he was a combat cameraman. After the war he became a technical director of film laboratory in Excelsiorfilm.
Go to Profile#4391
Alfred Daniell
1853 - 1937 (84 years)
Alfred Daniell FRSE was a Welsh-born British advocate, remembered for his contributions to Physics. His textbooks have been translated into most European languages, and other languages from Afrikaans to Japanese.
Go to Profile#4392
Muhammad al-Baghdadi
1050 - 1141 (91 years)
Abu Bakr Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Bāqī al-Baghdadi al-Ansārī al-Kaabī also known as Qadi al-Maristan, was an Arab jurist and mathematician. He was the author of a commentary on the tenth book of Euclid's Elements, which was translated by Gerard of Cremona as Liber judei super decimum Euclidis. The work was popular in Europe with several Latin manuscripts still extant.
Go to Profile#4393
Muiris Ó Gibealláin
Muiris Ó Gibealláin, Irish jurist, singer, philosopher, poet and musician, died 1328. Ó Gibealláin was a member of a family originally from Elphin in what is now County Roscommon, who were notable jurists and churchmen in medieval Ireland.
Go to Profile#4394
Ibn al-Raqqam
1250 - 1315 (65 years)
Ibn Al‐Raqqam Muḥammad Ibn Ibrahim Al‐Mursi Al‐Andalusi Al‐Tunisi Al‐Awsi also known as Ibn Al‐Raqqam was a 13th century Andalusian-Arab astronomer, mathematician and physician; but also a Sunni Muslim theologian and jurist.
Go to Profile#4395
Emil Szántó
1857 - 1904 (47 years)
Emil Szántó was a classical historian and epigrapher from Austria-Hungary. From 1875 he studied philology and history at the University of Vienna, receiving his doctorate in 1880. As a student, his teachers were Otto Hirschfeld, Theodor Gomperz, Otto Benndorf, Alexander Conze and Wilhelm von Hartel. In 1887 he took a study trip to Greece and Asia Minor, and during the same year, obtained his habilitation for ancient history at the university. In 1893 he became an associate professor, and shortly afterwards, conducted epigraphic research in Asia Minor with Eduard Hula. In 1901 he attained a fu...
Go to Profile#4396
Arthur Corbin
1874 - 1967 (93 years)
Arthur Linton Corbin was an American lawyer and legal scholar who was a professor at Yale Law School. He contributed to the development of the philosophy of law known as legal realism, and he wrote one of the most celebrated legal treatises of the 20th century, Corbin on Contracts.
Go to Profile#4397
Philippe Sarchi
1764 - 1830 (66 years)
François Philippe Sarchi originally Samuel Morpurgo, born in Gradisca d'Isonzo in Italy in 1764 and died in Paris in 1830, was a lawyer, linguist, philologist of Illyrian origin, specializing in Italian and Hebrew.
Go to Profile#4398
Frederick Sherwood Dunn
1893 - 1962 (69 years)
Frederick Sherwood Dunn was an American scholar of international law and international relations. After working as a legal officer at the U.S. Department of State, he went into academia and taught at Johns Hopkins University, Yale University, and Princeton University, publishing several books during his career. He served as a founder and a director of both Yale's Institute of International Studies and the Center of International Studies at Princeton. He founded the journal World Politics and was chairman of its editorial board until 1961.
Go to Profile#4399
Zechariah Chafee
1885 - 1957 (72 years)
Zechariah Chafee Jr. was an American judicial philosopher and civil rights advocate, described as "possibly the most important First Amendment scholar of the first half of the twentieth century" by Richard Primus. Chafee's avid defense of freedom of speech led to Senator Joseph McCarthy calling him "dangerous" to America.
Go to Profile#4400
Henry Angus
1891 - 1991 (100 years)
Henry Forbes Angus was a Canadian lawyer and academic. Born in Victoria, British Columbia, he received a Bachelor of Arts from McGill University in 1911. He received a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Civil Law from Oxford University in 1914. He was awarded the Vinerian Scholarship. He fought in India during World War I. After the war, he received a Master of Arts from Oxford University. Returning to British Columbia, he was called to the Bar.
Go to Profile