We’ve noted the “D-index” (an h-index for discipline-specific journals) calculated by research.com previously. (Their rankings of universities in law are pretty silly, since the faculty lists include deceasd faculty, retired faculty, and faculty who are not law professors.) They clearly don’t count law reviews for D-index, only faculty-edited journals, which is appropriate for legal philosophy. It’s not clear to me, however, what faculty-edited journals they are including. In any case, here are the legal philosophers with a D-index of at least 20 (they do not list faculty with a D-index lower than 20):

1. Jeremy Waldron (New York University (69)
2. John Finnis (emeritus, Oxford University and University of Notre Dame) (55)
3. Hans Kelsen (died 1973; formerly University of California, Berkeley [political science]) (49)
4. Ronald Dworkin (died 2013; formerly New York University) (44)
5. H.L.A. Hart (died 1992; formerly Oxford University) (35)
6. Jules Coleman (formerly Yale University) (34)
7. Frederick Schauer (died 2024; formerly University of Virginia) (33)
8. Brian Leiter (University of Chicago) (31)
9. David Dyzenhaus (University of Toronto) (30)
10. Andrei Marmor (Cornell University) (27)
11. Ernest Weinrib (emeritus, University of Toronto) (25)
12. Alon Harel (Hebrew University, Jerusalem) (24)
13. Matthew Kramer (Cambridge University) (23)
14. John Tasioulas (formerly Oxford University) (23)

Kelsen, Dworkin and Hart are far more influential than Waldron and Finnis, but it’s clear that, for some reason, no longer being alive and writing affects the D-index the way they calculate it. If someone wants to produce similar lists for other fields, feel free to share them with me.

UPDATE: A reader points out that the total citations (rounded to the nearest 100) may correspond a bit better to the influence than the D-Index, so here’s the legal philosophers above by total citations as recorded by research.com:

1. H.L.A. Hart (died 1992; formerly Oxford University) (27,200)
2. Ronald Dworkin (died 2013; formerly New York University) (23,200)
3. Jeremy Waldron (New York University) (19,900)
4. Hans Kelsen (died 1973; former UC Berkeley [political science]) (13,200)
5. John Finnis (emeritus, Oxford University and University of Notre dame) (12,000)
6. Jules Coleman (formerly Yale University) (10,700)
7. Frederick Schauer (died 2024); formerly University of Virginia) (10,300)
8. Brian Leiter (University of Chicago) (7,200)
9. Andrei Marmor (Cornell University) (4,600)
10. David Dyzenhaus (University of Toronto) (3,400)
11. John Tasioulas (formerly Oxford University) (2,600)
12. Matthew Kramer (Cambridge University) (2,200)
13. Alon Harel (Hebrew University) (2,100)
14. Ernest Weinrib (University of Toronto) (2,000)