Meet the Clerk

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What You Need to Know...

Lydia Gardner is the Clerk of the Circuit and County Courts of Orange County
She was first elected Clerk of Courts in 2000
She serves on a number of boards, including those advocating for the mentally ill and domestic violence victims
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Meet Clerk of Courts Lydia Gardner

Lydia Gardner has led tremendous change in the Clerk’s Office since her election in 2000. With an emphasis on providing exemplary Customer Service, she has developed a strategic plan for the Clerk’s operations, overseen revolutionary technology changes, and worked within the statutory requirements to operate the Clerk’s Office with no tax dollars. Many customer service features have been realized, most notably that over one million customers have the ability to pay their traffic tickets online at myorangeclerk.com. The Clerk’s website receives almost 240 million hits per year.

Gardner has used her office to advocate for the mentally ill, receiving the Central Florida Mental Health Association's Golden Bell Award. She played a key role in establishing the Domestic Violence Commission in Orange County, served on the Jail Oversight Committee, the Juvenile Justice Commission, as well as the Board of Directors for the Central Receiving Center. She has been appointed by the Florida Supreme Court to a number of special committees, most recently one to study privacy and court records. She also serves on the Board of the Orlando Science Center and the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce as a past chairman in 2003. Lydia was named chairman of a statewide committee that will create a Florida portal for Electronic Case Filing. ECF allows attorneys and pro-se litigants to electronically initiate cases and subsequent pleadings 24/7. In 2010, the Speaker of the House appointed Lydia to the Florida Clerks of Court Operations Corporation.

Gardner is a graduate of University of Michigan, holds certificates in the management program at the Crummer Graduate School of Business, Rollins College, and the executive leadership program at John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. She has taken graduate level courses at a number of universities. Previously she was a teacher, a member and chairman of the School Board of Orange County, a real estate broker, and an executive with a Fortune 100 telecommunications company.

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