"The amount of advertising pages produced year after year, I produced more than anyone else, at one point as much as 20, 25 percent of the total," Bobrick said.

His attorney, Wendy A. Kaplan, said she has taped testimony from a former supervisor as to Bobrick's competence.

Peter Van Leight, the review's worldwide advertising sales director and Bobrick's supervisor at the time he was dismissed, declined to discuss the specifics of Bobrick's performance.

But Bobrick's claim that he tripled the review's California ad sales has been contradicted by at least one source.

According to Susan Sanford, the review's Los Angeles sales representative, the review had only one advertiser--Lexus, the auto maker--in the Los Angeles area when Barbara Bella and Associates replaced Bobrick as the contractor responsible for California and 10 Western states.

That account was only worth about $70,000 a year, compared with current sales of about $350,000 to $400,000 a year, Sanford said.

Bella, the firm's owner and the review's San Francisco ad sales representative, also said advertising had gone up since she won the contract with the review, but declined to give specific figures.

Bobrick said he "definitely" had more than one California account at the time of his departure, but refused to be more specific.

Also at issue is what Bobrick's supervisors told him when his contract was terminated.

"They didn't claim it was a performance issue here," said Kaplan, his lawyer. "They said, 'Oh, we're just having a new task force, that's all,'" referring to the new full-time New York staff.

Ryan said that as far as he knew, Bobrick was told that his departure was performance-related. Bobrick refused to comment.

The University attorney said the review's restructuring was business-related and that both Bobrick and Quinn were offered a chance to apply for positions with the new full-time New York staff. He also disputed the suit's assertion that Bobrick was replaced "with a substantially younger employee."

"When the Business Review went to employees rather than contractors, there were a number of people brought in, and some of them may have been younger than Mr. Bobrick; but it was not a causal relationship," Ryan said. "Age had nothing to do with it."

Sanford described ad sales as a volatile business, based largely on personal connections. Contractors are often not rehired.

"If someone is unhappy with someone's work, that's when they don't renew a contract," she said. "Also it's very unusual to have someone not be based in the territory they're representing. We're based here in Los Angeles; Barbara's based in San Francisco. That's how you build business."

"People lose their jobs all the time," she added.