Merrill Lynch found one in Ausaf Abbas, coincidentally the target of one of the many sex-discrimination cases against the firm.

So I look at my own little potential sex-discrimination case from 1973.

"Widening awareness has a lot to do with the Thomas case," said Denise Kingsmill, a London barrister who often handles sex-discrimination cases.

Nor Bar to Age-Bias Cases In contrast to race- and sex-discrimination cases, lawyers say there is little hesitation in taking on clients who claim age discrimination.

(In sex-discrimination cases it is $475,181.)

A Federal district judge impatiently dismissed The Citadel's motion for a mistrial in the sex-discrimination case against the state college today.

Wal-Mart made headlines this summer when it was sued in the largest sex-discrimination case in history, brought on behalf of about 1.6 million current and former female employees.

But when the case was heard on appeal, the punitive damages were ruled unavailable in sex-discrimination cases.

Judge Alito has favored an inflated standard of evidence for racial- and sex-discrimination cases that would make it very hard even to bring them to court, much less win.

In 1997, a federal appellate court refused to analyze her claim as a sex-discrimination case, which would have led to comparing the treatment she received to the treatment of "new dads."