Elizabeth Hilton

Elizabeth Hilton is a criminal defense attorney with a distinguished career spanning over thirty years in both public and private practice.

A graduate of the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, D.C., Elizabeth earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance Performance from Southern Methodist University. After a major career pivot, she relocated to the Bay Area to attend the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.

Following law school, Elizabeth joined the Contra Costa County Public Defender’s Office and a short time later, the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office. During her tenure, she gained extensive trial experience, conducting more than twenty misdemeanor jury trials and thirty felony jury trials, including three homicide cases. She also spent two years in the Research Department and four years as Managing Attorney of the Misdemeanor Unit, where she was responsible for training newly hired attorneys in trial advocacy and motion practice.

As a supervisor, Elizabeth was also an annual guest lecturer in Professor Nancy Lemon’s domestic violence course at UC Berkeley School of Law. Among her notable accomplishments, she conceived and drafted the legislation for San Francisco’s groundbreaking “Be the Jury” pilot program, which provides fairer jury compensation and promotes diversity in jury service. She also successfully advocated for revisions to CALCRIM 510, the jury instruction on Excusable Homicide: Accident, before the Judicial Council of California.

After twenty-five years with the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, Elizabeth joined the Law Office of Douglas L. Rappaport, where she continues her criminal defense practice in private practice. Her work now spans multiple jurisdictions—including Marin, Santa Clara, and San Mateo Counties—as well as Federal Court and family court. She represents both petitioners and respondents in domestic violence restraining order proceedings, and both victims and defendants in criminal cases.

Outside of her legal practice, Elizabeth is an avid traveler, writer, and lifelong student of the arts and languages. A former professional dancer, she continues to take ballet classes and enjoys writing works of magical fiction. She is conversational in Spanish, French, Greek, Italian, and Swedish, and has also studied Indonesian, Vietnamese, Croatian, Turkish, and Catalan.