Senator Ira I. Silverstein was first elected to the Illinois Senate in 1998. Throughout his tenure representing the 8th Senate District, he has been an advocate for good government and a strong voice for making communities safer and protecting consumer rights. Senator Silverstein was singled out in the past by a Chicago Tribune editorial as being a "quiet but hard working" legislator and one of the "few members who actually reads all proposed legislation." Senator Silverstein is a leading voice for public safety, passing legislation protecting children from known sexual predators and from "cyber-bullies". He is a tireless promoter of consumer rights as well as Internet and technology-related protections. He serves on the Senate's Executive, Financial Institutions, Executive Appointments, Insurance and Judiciary Committees. Senator Silverstein earned his bachelor’s degree from Loyola University Chicago and his law degree from the John Marshall Law School. He is married to Debra Silverstein, a CPA and Alderman of Chicago's 50th Ward. They have four children.

I received my Juris Doctor and Master of Social Work degrees from Loyola University Chicago with a certificate in child law and a concentration in non-profit program management and development. There, I also received a public interest recognition award and a leadership and service award. Before forming Hunsinger Law Group, LLC, I worked with multiple disenfranchised populations in various parts of the world. For example, I worked with refugees in southern Mexico at the United Nations, conducted field research about child domestic servitude in Tanzania, and assisted with representing high-risk youth in South Africa at the University of Pretoria's Child Law Centre. In fact, a case wherein I drafted a brief about triple jeopardy for students, received a favorable opinion from the Constitutional Court of South Africa (USA's Supreme Court equivalent). In the United States, I also gained valuable experience at Loyola University's Civitas ChildLaw Center and Northwestern's Bluhm Legal Clinic's Child and Family Justice Center as a student attorney appointed by the court to represent children in custody disputes and protection proceedings. Within that capacity, I conducted home visits investigating the child's safety within the environment. I also met with incarcerated youth and adult clients, writing reports for the legal team about the clients' well-being and institutional adjustment. In addition, I represented juveniles, parolee candidates, and people with disabilities in hearings. My past non-profit experiences include helping one non-profit program increase revenue by 25% in 6-months, drafting mission statements, creating and implementing a mental health screening process for a volunteer program, writing a training component for behavioral health practitioners, specifically a curriculum about military sexual assault, organizing summits that connect service providers to families who lost loved ones, analyzing legislation pertaining to a non-profit's interests and writing fact sheets and briefs to inform staff.