 Hiltzik was raised in Teaneck, New Jersey, and graduated from the Ramaz School.He attended the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations and then the Fordham University School of Law.After law school, he worked as press secretary and deputy executive director of the New York State Democratic Committee, where he worked on the 1998 campaigns of Chuck Schumer and Eliot Spitzer and Hillary Clinton's Listening Tour in July 1999.