age discrimination

[Anonymous <no_email@fake.address>]

After working in the mortgage banking industry for over 15 years, I got a job with a well known builder in Southern California.  I had been told by my manager that I was one of the "cream of the crop" of senior loan processors(10 years experience) and she had worked hard to put together such a great team. After 1 1/2 years, our company was merged with another well know builder.  Our staff was told that our management would be out, but that there would be lots of work for us and their staff.  Within a couple of months, the new president started making comments about the fact that there were too many "heads" around and took the senior processors into a meeting and asked each of us to pick one of the other employees to be our assistants when we started working with the new company's system.  Several of the people outside were terribly trashed in that meeting and I picked a young gal whom I knew to be quite capable, to be my assistant.  Some of my peers were surprised that I would want her and trashed her, but I knew her work and didn't worry what those others said.  We had all been told that we would be interviewing with the new president and had been asked to e-mail our job duties to him.  The interviews never materialized.  However on January 7, 2000, 8 of us including the gal I had picked  to assist me were layed off!  Interestingly, 3 of us were women over the age of 45 years old.  The new president was under 40, slim, blond and tried to surf 3-4 days a week before work started in the morning.  In fact the start time was changed from 8 to 8:30 for that very purpose.  I have not found any work since then.  I have been on about 6 positive interviews, but never called back.  I am now trying to find an attorney who specializes in age discrimination to file a suit on my behalf.  There were no layoffs from the new company's staff.  I had the same salary as those younger women who were still employed.  I had approximately 10 years more experience than one 23 year old.  We were both notary publics.  She had missed quite a bit of work in the short time she was employed due to a hard pregancy, not including post partum recovery.  I really want to pursue this, since I was second in line in seniority.  The person before me had been there one month longer than I.  I know our job market is tough right now, because one employee is having to make a extremely long commute since the office has moved to a popular coastal city, and her plan was to have found employment at a location much closer to her home. I feel sad that I had finally found my long coveted job after 16 years and felt like all those many years of experience had prepared me for this great job.  Only to have it taken away because of my age