Gary Goddard has worked in immigration law since 1997 when he joined the Refugee Legal Centre (latterly Refugee and Migrant Justice). In 2004 he worked for a refugee charity in Ljubljana. Between 2005 and 2010 he worked for the Refugee Legal Centre as an immigration caseworker which was primarily asylum casework – adults and unaccompanied minors - and which included preparing and presenting appeals and bail hearings in the Tribunal.

He worked briefly for Blokh Solicitors as an immigration caseworker, 2010-2011. He was then a senior immigration caseworker for Citizens Advice Southwark between 2011 and 2020 doing primarily non-asylum immigration casework (article 8 private life and family life applications / EEA cases/ nationality cases and so on) as well as some asylum work/ asylum fresh claims and trafficking cases. This included initial applications and preparing and presenting appeals in the First-tier and Upper Tribunals. Between January 2021 and January 2023, he worked for Lawstop primarily as an immigration caseworker but also working on Legal Aid public law judicial review cases.

He is accredited as a Supervising Senior Caseworker by the Law Society under their Immigration and Asylum Accreditation Scheme and authorised by OISC at Level 3.