William Nichol Eskridge Jr. (born October 27, 1951)[1] is an American legal scholar who is the John A. Garver Professor of Jurisprudence at Yale Law School.

[citation needed] In the Virginia Law Review, Judge Richard Posner argued that the book essentially established the intellectual bona fides of a new and critically important field (Legislation) and that it ranked among the great landmark casebooks of the twentieth century.

[7] Legislation and Statutory Interpretation immediately emerged as a vibrant and important field of study, doctrinal development, and intellectual engagement.

Eskridge subsequently published a series of classic articles (usually co-authored with Phil Frickey) developing themes first announced in the casebook.

[9] Between 1990 and 1995, Eskridge represented a gay couple seeking a marriage license in Washington, D.C. Like all the other early same-sex marriage cases, this one did not prevail, but for the first time in American history, one judge, John Ferren of the DC Court of Appeals, wrote an opinion finding discrimination against same-sex couples to be unconstitutional (Dean v. District of Columbia, 653 A.2d 307 (D.C.

[15] Writing in 1984, Eskridge was the first legal scholar to argue that home buyers were taking on too much risk, especially in light of the market's creation of new kinds of loans, with adjustable rates and other financial gimmicks.