Mary Gardner

Dr. Mary Gardner is a licensed clinical psychologist who has been in private practice in the Chicago area for 30 years. She discovered over the course of her work with children and families that when couples divorce, the distress to the children can be significant. In some extreme cases, the relationship between a parent and a child can be fractured, and sometimes even curtailed for periods of time. Dr. Gardner decided to switch her practice from working with clients clinically to working with them in a forensic framework. For the past 20 years, Dr. Gardner has been appointed to serve as the Court's Expert in conducting child custody cases (now referred to as Parental Allocation cases in Illinois). She has been appointment in almost 400 cases in five counties in Illinois. Her work has focused on high conflict cases where the parents are locked in an acrimonious struggle with each other and the child pays the price. Dr. Gardner works on reducing this parental acrimony by providing information to the Court so that good decisions can be made that are in the best interests of the children.