PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: law
16th president of the United States
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States (1861–65), who preserved the Union during the American Civil War and brought about the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States....
associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
Clarence Thomas is an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1991, the second African American to serve on the Court. Appointed to replace Thurgood Marshall (1908–93), the Court’s...
17th chief justice of the United States
John G. Roberts, Jr. is the 17th chief justice of the United States (2005– ). Roberts was the second of four children born to John (Jack) G. Roberts, Sr., and Rosemary Roberts (née Podrasky) in Buffalo,...
British author, philosopher, and statesman
Francis Bacon was the lord chancellor of England (1618–21). A lawyer, statesman, philosopher, and master of the English tongue, he is remembered in literary terms for the sharp worldly wisdom of a few...
4th chief justice of the United States
John Marshall was the fourth chief justice of the United States and principal founder of the U.S. system of constitutional law. As perhaps the Supreme Court’s most influential chief justice, Marshall was...
associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 to 2020. She was the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court. Joan Ruth Bader was the younger of the...
American politician
Mike Johnson is an American lawyer and Republican politician who became the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives in October 2023. Johnson, an ardent social conservative, represents the 4th district...
associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
Samuel A. Alito, Jr. is an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 2006. Alito’s father, Samuel A. Alito, immigrated to the United States from Italy as a child and eventually served...
associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
Brett Kavanaugh is an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court who was nominated by Pres. Donald Trump and confirmed in 2018 after bruising hearings that included allegations of excessive drinking and...
associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
Amy Coney Barrett is an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 2020. She was the fifth woman to serve on the Supreme Court. Amy Coney was the first of eight children of Linda...
associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
Antonin Scalia was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1986 to 2016, well known for his strong legal conservatism. He was the first Supreme Court justice of Italian ancestry....
Roman statesman, scholar, and writer
Cicero was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, and writer who vainly tried to uphold republican principles in the final civil wars that destroyed the Roman Republic. His writings include books of rhetoric,...
United States senator, first lady, and secretary of state
Hillary Clinton is an American lawyer and politician who served as a U.S. senator (2001–09) and secretary of state (2009–13) in the administration of Pres. Barack Obama. She had served as first lady (1993–2001)...
associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. was an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, U.S. legal historian and philosopher who advocated judicial restraint. He stated the concept of “clear and present...
American lawyer and government official
William Barr is an American lawyer and government official who served as attorney general of the United States during the administrations of Presidents George H.W. Bush (1991–93) and Donald Trump (2019–20)....
14th chief justice of the United States
Earl Warren was an American jurist, the 14th chief justice (1953–69) of the United States who presided over the Supreme Court during a period of sweeping changes in U.S. constitutional law, especially...
president of South Korea
Moon Jae-In is a South Korean lawyer and civil rights activist who was the president of South Korea (2017–22) and leader of the liberal Democratic Party of Korea (2015–16). Moon’s parents were refugees...
American lawyer
Jack Smith American career prosecutor who in November 2022 was appointed special counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in charge of two ongoing investigations into possible criminal activity...
president of Argentina
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is an Argentine lawyer and politician who in 2007 became the first female elected president of Argentina; she held office until 2015. She succeeded her husband, Néstor Kirchner,...
American jurist
Merrick Garland is an American lawyer, judge, and government official who served as U.S. attorney general throughout the administration of Pres. Joe Biden (2021–25). Garland previously was a judge on the...
Russian lawyer
Aleksey Navalny was a Russian lawyer, anti-corruption activist, and politician who achieved international recognition as one of the most prominent domestic critics of Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin (1999–2008,...
American politician
Daniel Webster was an American orator and politician who practiced prominently as a lawyer before the U.S. Supreme Court and served as a U.S. congressman (1813–17, 1823–27), a U.S. senator (1827–41, 1845–50),...
associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
Ketanji Brown Jackson is an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 2022. She was the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court. Ketanji Onyika Brown was the first of two...
American law enforcement official
Robert Mueller is an American law enforcement official who served as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 2001 to 2013. In 2017–19 he was special counsel to a Department of Justice...
11th chief justice of the United States
Charles Evans Hughes was a jurist and statesman who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (1910–16), U.S. secretary of state (1921–25), and 11th chief justice of the...
American attorney
Fani Willis is an American lawyer who currently serves as the district attorney of Fulton county, Georgia. The county’s seat is located in Atlanta, the state’s capital and largest city. Willis gained a...
chair of the Federal Reserve
Jerome Powell is the chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (“the Fed”), the central bank of the United States. Nominated by U.S. Pres. Donald Trump in 2017 and confirmed by the...
French politician
Marine Le Pen is a French politician who succeeded her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, as leader of the National Front (later National Rally) party in 2011. She was that party’s candidate in the 2017 and 2022...
5th chief justice of the United States
Roger B. Taney was the fifth chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, remembered principally for the Dred Scott decision (1857). He was the first Roman Catholic to serve on the Supreme...
Dutch statesman and scholar
Hugo Grotius was a Dutch jurist and scholar whose masterpiece De Jure Belli ac Pacis (1625; On the Law of War and Peace) is considered one of the greatest contributions to the development of international...
English jurist
Sir William Blackstone was an English jurist, whose Commentaries on the Laws of England, 4 vol. (1765–69), is the best-known description of the doctrines of English law. The work became the basis of university...
American lawyer and government official
Kash Patel is an American lawyer and government official who serves as director of the FBI (2025– ) in the Republican administration of Pres. Donald Trump. Patel held several posts during Trump’s first...
American statesman
Patrick Henry was a brilliant orator and a major figure of the American Revolution, perhaps best known for his words “Give me liberty or give me death!” which he delivered in 1775. He was independent Virginia’s...
English jurist
Sir Edward Coke was a British jurist and politician whose defense of the supremacy of the common law against Stuart claims of royal prerogative had a profound influence on the development of English law...
associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
Hugo Black was a lawyer, politician, and associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (1937–71). Black’s legacy as a Supreme Court justice derives from his support of the doctrine of total...
associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
Owen Josephus Roberts was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (1930–45). Roberts was the son of hardware merchant Josephus R. Roberts and Emma Lafferty Roberts. He graduated...
American attorney
Pam Bondi is an American lawyer who serves as the U.S. attorney general (2025– ) in the Republican administration of Pres. Donald Trump. Bondi previously made history as the first female attorney general...
3rd chief justice of the United States
Oliver Ellsworth was an American statesman and jurist, chief author of the 1789 act establishing the U.S. federal court system. He was the third chief justice of the United States. (Read Britannica’s biography...
associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
Stanley F. Reed was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (1938–57). Reed was the only child of John A. Reed, a physician, and Frances Forman Reed, who at one time was registrar...
associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
Thurgood Marshall was a lawyer, civil rights activist, and associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1967–91), the Court’s first African American member. As an attorney, he successfully argued before...
American politician and lawyer
Beau Biden was an American lawyer and state attorney general of Delaware (2007–15) and the eldest son of Joe Biden, the 46th president of the United States (2021–25). Beau Biden was an accomplished and...
associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
Harold H. Burton was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (1945–58). Burton was the son of Alfred E. Burton, a dean and professor of civil engineering at the Massachusetts Institute...
16th chief justice of the United States
William Rehnquist was the 16th chief justice of the United States, appointed to the Supreme Court in 1971 and elevated to chief justice in 1986. Rehnquist served in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World...
president of Botswana
Duma Boko human rights lawyer and politician who became president of Botswana in 2024. His stunning victory ended nearly 60 years of rule by the Botswana Democratic Party, which had governed the landlocked...
associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
Sandra Day O’Connor was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006. She was the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court. A moderate conservative, she was known for...
American author, soldier, and diplomat
Lewis Wallace was an American soldier, lawyer, diplomat, and author who is principally remembered for his historical novel Ben-Hur. The son of David Wallace, an Indiana governor and one-term U.S. congressman,...
American advocate and fundraiser
Leonard Leo is an influential American advocate and fundraiser for conservative legal causes and is cochair of the Federalist Society. He played key roles in helping Republican presidents select conservative...
associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
Louis Brandeis was a lawyer and associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1916–39) who was the first Jew to sit on the high court. Brandeis’s parents, members of cultivated Bohemian Jewish families,...
American attorney
Michael Cohen Michael Cohen is a disbarred American lawyer who served as a personal attorney, confidante, and informal problem solver, or “fixer,” for Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States...
American attorney and law enforcement official
James Comey is a U.S. attorney and law enforcement official who served as director (2013–17) of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Comey came from an Irish American family. His paternal grandfather...
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