Gary is a barrister called to the Bar in 1989 of Inner Temple. He joined the Crown Prosecution Service and served in a number of roles including the International Branch dealing with complex international cases. As part of the international effort to normalize Kosovo, Gary was seconded to UN mission as prosecutor helping to re-establish justice in that area. After a short spell back in the UK he moved on to the Hague as trial attorney at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

Previously, Gary was an elected member of the Bar Council, where he served for a number of years including being a member of the Professional Conduct and Law Reform Committees. In 2000 Gary was appointed an Asylum Support Adjudicator and then in 2003, he was appointed a Commissioner of the Independent Police Complaints Commission, responsible for the northeast, HMRC and the SOCA and played a part in the set up and roll out of the new system. Using some of that experience Gary was appointed as Deputy Chief Legal Ombudsman for England and Wales, again helping to set up a new system for dealing with complaints about legal professionals, working with the professions and other stakeholders to deal with complaints in a less combative way. These latter roles involved significant issues of administrative and regulatory law, together with governance issues of NDPBs.

Gary is also, qualified trainer, mediator and a deputy district court judge.