[throwaway_isms]

Same way as any age discrimination lawsuit.

If you have reason to believe you were terminated or not hired because of age, meet with a lawyer. If a lawsuit it filed, discovery is a powerful tool in litigation to help gather evidence that is generally required to prove the claim. Often this will be data about the other employees they have let go or in the case you weren't hired the age of the person ultimately hired and those that were interviewed but not hired.

There are about 10,000-15,000 a year, like all areas of law probably about 90% settle pre-trial.

[kcplate]

My point is that I don’t think it’s that easy to prove unless it’s blatantly obvious from an outside perspective and most lawyers wouldn’t take a case on contingency unless it was blatantly obvious to them that it was a winner.

So do you pursue it paying some lawyer an hourly rate to sift through a thousand emails just to find that the company hired a younger but still fully qualified candidate? If you are a person at the sunset of your career and still need a job it’s likely that you will not bankroll the effort…so you just move on.