What do I need to establish to pursue an age discrimination lawsuit under NY employment laws

At the simplest level, you need to prove that you were the victim of some negative employment action because of your age. Typically, the issue that engenders the most litigation is whether the action that the employer took was due to your age, or due to some other, non-discriminatory reason.

When we represent clients in your situation, we usually do several things: (i) attempt to ascertain whether there is evidence to support a claim of possible discrimination; (ii) determine whether the client has any potential breach of contract claims; (iii) analyze the retirement package that the employer is offering; (iv) either assist the client in making realistic demands in his negotiations with his employer, or intervene for the client to negotiate directly with the employer (using the information gleaned from the analyses in i, ii and iii); and (iv) if an acceptable package cannot be negotiated, and if there's a valid discrimination claim, prosecute that claim.

As for the package to expect or demand, there really is no firm rule of thumb. People will sometimes quote a certain number of weeks/months severance for each year of service, but there's no legal requirement for that kind of severance, and many employers don't offer anything close to that. So what's "reasonable" for you will depend on many factors that are specific to you and your employer.