Schiff was born in Framingham, Massachusetts, the son of Edward and Sherrill Ann (Glovsky) Schiff. He was raised in a Jewish family which moved to Scottsdale, Arizona in 1970 and Alamo, California in 1972. He graduated from Danville's Monte Vista High School in 1978, and was both his class valedictorian and the student voted by his peers as "most likely to succeed". Schiff received a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Stanford University in 1982 and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1985.