Philip H. Hilder

Philip H. Hilder is an American criminal defense attorney and founder of the Houston law firm Hilder & Associates, P.C. He has represented whistle-blowers and other witnesses and defendants in several high-profile white-collar crime cases. He represented Sherron Watkins, the former Enron vice president who helped shed light on details of the company’s collapse in 2001. Ms. Watkins was named one of Time magazine’s three “Persons of the Year 2002.” Hilder was interviewed and featured in the 2005 Oscar-nominated Alex Gibney documentary, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.

In the lobbying scandal surrounding Jack Abramoff, Hilder represented Tom Rodgers, a Washington lobbyist for Indian tribes who leaked documents to the media about Abramoff’s activities.

Hilder represented the first whistle-blower in the Countrywide Financial scandal of 2008. Another Hilder client was the whistle-blower who was sued by his former employer News America Marketing when he testified about the company’s anticompetitive practices. News America is a marketing subsidiary of News Corp.

Hilder and associate James Rytting also have worked with The Innocence Project and represent Texas death row inmate Larry Swearingen. Swearingen has long insisted he is innocent and his execution was stayed in 2013 through the efforts of Hilder and Rytting while he seeks DNA testing of crime scene evidence. Before entering private law practice, Hilder was the attorney-in-charge of the Justice Department’s Houston office of the Organized Crime Strike Force. He was also an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Texas with the Presidential Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force.

Hilder holds a law degree from Boston College Law School (J.D. 1981) and undergraduate degree from the University of Iowa (B.A. 1977).

• Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room 2005. IMDB. Includes personal interviews with Philip Hilder.