Richard Allen Posner is an American legal scholar who served as a federal appellate judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1981 to 2017. A senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, Posner was identified by The Journal of Legal Studies as the most-cited legal scholar of the 20th century. As of 2021, he is also the most-cited legal scholar of all time. He is widely considered to be one of the most influential legal scholars in the United States.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit is the U.S. federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the courts in the following districts:Central District of Illinois Northern District of Illinois Southern District of Illinois Northern District of Indiana Southern District of Indiana Eastern District of Wisconsin Western District of Wisconsin