Justice Hector L. Hofileña is retired Associate Justice of the Court of Appeals.

He was born in Silay City, Negros Occidental, on December 30, 1929, the son of Honorato Hofileña and Josefina Locsin. He completed his Elementary and High Schools studies in Silay South Elementary School and Silay Institute, respectively.

He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree, magna cum laude, at the Ateneo de Manila in 1951, and a Bachelor of Laws degree, cum laude, in the same college three years thereafter. He immediately took and passed the 1954 Bar examinations, and was admitted to the practice of law in February, 1955.

He started teaching law in 1957, and was appointed Registrar of the Ateneo College of Law in 1958, a position he held until 1994 when he was appointed Associate Justice in the Court of Appeals.  During that period, he handled classes in Persons and Family Relations, Property, Succession, administrative Law, Conflict of Laws, and Legal and Judicial Ethics.

Simultaneously, he was engaged in the practice of law, as Assistant Attorney, successively, in the Deogracias T. Reyes Law Office and Angel S. Gamboa Law Office, and subsequently as a partner in the Gamboa & Hofileña Law Office and in the Guingona, Nepomuceno & Hofileña Law Office. He was General Counsel of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines in 2007.

He retired from the bench in 1999 and immediately resumed teaching in the Ateneo law school, where he is presently handling classes in Civil Law subject (Property, Succession) and Legal and Judicial Ethics. He also gives Pre-Bar and Pre-Week lectures in Property, Legal & Judicial Ethics, and Practical Exercises.

He is the Vice-Chairman of the Department of Judicial Ethics of the Philippine Judicial Academy of the Supreme Court, and has contributed to the publication of the Benchbook for Philippine Judges and the annotation of the New Code of Judicial Conduct for the Philippine Judiciary.

He was a lecturer in various Mandatory Continuing Legal Education seminars ever since the MCLE program was instituted.

Justice Hofileña was appointed by the Supreme Court as Bar Examiner for Civil law in the 1996, 2000 and 2001 Bar Examinations.