Eades was born in Kentucky but grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. After graduating from Rhodes College, he entered the United States Marine Corps Reseve. When he finished active duty, he attended law school in Tennessee, and then worked as a lawyer for the Tennessee Valley Authority in Knoxville. He later moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to study at Harvard Law School. For more than twenty years, he has been a law professor at the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville. He has written books and articles on many legal topics and has also taught in England and Germany.