Paula Silsby grew up in Ellsworth, Maine where she graduated from Ellsworth High School. After high school, she left Maine briefly to attend Mt. Holyoke College, then returned attend the University of Maine School of Law where she obtained her law degree in 1976. Silsby clerked for Judge Harry Glassman of the Maine Superior Court in Portland until 1977, when she was hired as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Maine. Since beginning with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, she has served as Senior Litigation Counsel, Criminal Chief, and was court appointed U.S. Attorney in 2001.

In 1978, she was awarded the Maine Jaycee’s Outstanding Young Woman Award. Since that time, she has been honored with the Department of Justice Director’s Award for Executive Achievement in 1996, the Caroline Duby Glassman Award in 1998, the University of Maine School of Law Women’s Law Association Award in 2002, the University of Maine School of Law’s L. Kinvin Wroth Award for Distinguished Alumna of the Year in 2004, the Deborah Morton Society Award in 2005, the Buzz Fitzgerald Public Service Award presented by the Maine Citizens Against Handgun Violence, also in 2005, and the Chief Postal Inspector Award in 2008.

Silsby has served as an instructor in trial practice courses at Harvard Law School, the University of Maine School of Law, the Attorney General’s Advocacy Institute, and the Maine Trial Lawyers Association. She has served as a director for the University of Maine Law Alumni Association, a member of the University of Maine School of Law Board of Visitors, and, since 2000, has been a campaign cabinet member of the University of Maine School of Law’s capital campaign, “Foundation for the Future,” where she served as chairperson of the Alumni Association campaign effort.

In 1985, Silsby co-founded Pine Grove Child Development Center, Inc., a Montessori school in Falmouth, Maine, which she still co-owns. In addition, she has served as a member of the Grievance Commission, Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar; a Treasurer/Trustee of Williston West Church; a literacy volunteer; and as a director on the boards of the National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys, Sexual Assault Response Services of Southern Maine, Maine Cancer Research & Education Foundation, and Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Greater Portland.