The former general counsel of Connecticut-based commodities trader Gerald Metals sued the company Tuesday for gender and age discrimination, saying that she was denied pay increases on par with male attorneys and forced to tolerate a “good ol' boy” work environment.

In her suit, attorney Roxanne Khazarian accuses Gerald Metals CEO Craig Dean of purposefully marginalizing older workers and particularly older women. The company has regularly held business events at the Playboy Club in London and has never had a female member of its board in its 50-year history, the suit alleges.

According to the complaint, Gerald Metals' legal department is currently staffed by seven male attorneys who are considerably younger than Khazarian, who is 61. Khazarian worked at the company for eight years but was fired in April after repeatedly complaining of discrimination to company leadership, her suit says. She is suing in Connecticut federal court for lost wages and punitive and compensatory damages.

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Gerald Metals “has engaged in widespread and systemic age discrimination against its employees, generally, and older female employees, particularly, with respect to its employment practices related to hiring, promotion, leadership opportunities, opportunities for advancement and termination,” states the complaint.

Khazarian—who has had a long career as in-house counsel to major companies—is represented by Stratford, Connecticut-based firm Mitchell & Sheahan. Prior to joining Gerald Metals, she held GC and vice president posts at Ethan Allen, Kaplan and Gibson Guitars.

A call to Gerald Group, which owns the metals unit, was initially placed on hold. A female speaker then picked up and said, “We don't take these calls. Thank you,” before disconnecting.

The suit is the latest to be lobbed by a female attorney against an employer over the issue of pay equity. Sedgwick, Jones Day, and the insurer Farmers Group have all faced similar suits.

Khazarian's complaint points to data about the gender pay gap in the field of law—including a 2013 survey by ALM Legal Intelligence that found male GCs and chief legal officers received annual average cash compensation of $723,700, while females with the same positions are paid more than 20 percent less.

Khazarian says in her suit that she took a pay cut to join the commodities trader, accepting a salary of $260,000. But she says she was promised annual bonuses ranging from 100 to 150 percent of her base salary, which would more than offset the loss.

In reality, her average annual bonus was just shy of 15 percent of her base salary, according to the complaint. Khazarian adds that she only received one annual salary increase—after she threatened to sue the company for discrimination.

The lawsuit alleges that while Gerald Metals sought to push out older women, it gave favorable treatment to “younger, attractive female employees.” According to the complaint, three female employees in their 40s, referred to internally as “Craig's Girls,” were paid more and given bigger bonuses than older women in comparable positions.

These women were also allowed flexible schedules and “assigned to work with the CEO on his personal matters rather than supporting Gerald Group projects,” it adds.

Khazarian also says that she suffered retaliation after complaining about the alleged discrimination to company executives, who she says proceeded to create a “paper trail” of complaints against her for allegedly violating company policies about handling electronic documents. The suit also seems to insinuate that the company may have been responsible for hacking her home computer and email accounts—saying they were compromised after she saw an executive researching “stingray” cellphone surveillance devices.

Things only got worse, she says, after she filed discrimination allegations against the company with federal and state authorities, a prerequisite to taking legal action. “[CEO] Dean spent more time emailing, managing and monitoring Khazarian's activities in the six weeks after her return to work after the filing of her claim of age and sex discrimination, than he spent communicating with her in the prior eight years that she was employed by Gerald Metals as its General Counsel,” the complaint says.

Contact Ben Hancock at [email protected]. On Twitter: @benghancock