Lenard worked for the Office of the State Attorney in the 11th Judicial Circuit of Florida (Dade County) from 1976 to 1982, serving as assistant state attorney from 1976 to 1978, as chief of the Consumer Fraud Division from 1978 to 1980, and as chief of the Consumer and Economic Crime Division from 1980 to 1982. Lenard served as a Dade County Court judge from 1982 to 1993 and as a circuit judge for the Family Division of the 11th Judicial Circuit from 1993 to 1995.
Federal judicial service
President Bill Clinton nominated Lenard to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida on September 29, 1995, to the seat vacated by Judge James Lawrence King. She was confirmed by the Senate on December 22, 1995, and received her commission on December 26, 1995. She assumed senior status on July 1, 2017.[3]
Notable case
Lenard was the presiding judge in the third trial of the Liberty City Seven, after the first two trials ended in mistrials.[4] She also has presided over the Moisés Maionica case,[5] the civil trial of Juan López Grijalba, a Honduran Armycolonel, who was found responsible killings and kidnappings in Honduras during the 1980s and was ordered to pay $47 million to several torture victims and surviving relatives,[6] and the case of the Cuban Five.[7]