WHAT does it take to hold your powerful bosses accountable if they try to bully you out the door?

Documents, e-mails, a former deputy district attorney as your lawyer  and a never-say-die approach.

Such was the lesson learned by Michael G. Winston, a former executive at the Countrywide Financial Corporation. Mr. Winston spent three years in a legal battle against Countrywide, the once-mighty mortgage giant, and its current owner, Bank of America, contending that he was punished and pushed out for not toeing the company line. On Feb. 4, he won: a jury in California awarded him $3.8 million in damages.

“It is the littlest of Davids beating the biggest of Goliaths and taking two of them on at once,” Mr. Winston said. “This is the story of somebody who tried to set a company right. But it was frightening to them for me to shine the light from the inside out.”

Mr. Winston’s story provides a glimpse into how business was done at Countrywide at the height of the subprime craziness  and how assiduously Angelo R. Mozilo, the company’s fallen leader, worked to quash dissent in the ranks. Mr. Winston had the audacity to question Countrywide practices. Mr. Mozilo was not pleased and, before long, Mr. Winston was marginalized and later dismissed.