With 10 years experience, why are you still discriminated against if you did not go to a top 25 law school?

I have 10 years practical work experience in my field. I recently left my old job and in the interviewing process I find that recruiters and HR persons are eliminating me from the pool without further investigation or interview simply because I did not go to a top 25 school. My school is ABA accredited and my work history and experience is top notch. What's the problem and how do I get around this?

To Mary: FYI many "lawyers" work in-house at corporations and have business and legal affairs titles such as director and vice president. To obtain one of those "positions" you do go through HR and employment recruiters. To Judy: I am sorry that my choice of words was less than "technical" for my posted question. You will be happy to know that I do not practice employment law nor constitutional law. I can assure you however that I am extremely competent in the area in which I worked. Finally I left without securing another position for personal reasons which I will not go into in this forum. I would appreciate hearing from anyone else who may have "helpful" thoughts.

Some law firms depend on the prestige of the education of their lawyers. If you didn't go to a top school, apply to firms or companies where that is not an issue. It's the same in other fields.

I find your post extremely odd for the following reason:

1. You don't sound like you have ever went to law school. Law schools produce LAWYERS...not ANY other profession.

2. Lawyers don't go through human resources to obtain a job...they are usually interviewed by other attorney's because of the complex nature of the position.

3. If you were an attorney with 10 years of experience...why can't you open a private practice or join a firm?

4. Why would you not know, as an attorney, what job options are available to you.

That is why your post doesn't make any sense.

maybe she is a paralegal, not a lawyer.

but yes, lawyers will usually be headhunted by other lawyers.

if you have to go through HR depts, then you're more likely to be a paralegal.

As to the answer - lawyers are just SNOBBISH - usually they are what I call Arrogant Pr*cks.

You have 10 years experience as a lawyer, and still throw around the words "discriminated against" in that inaccurate of a manner? Maybe it's your knowledge, not your alma mater, that's keeping you from getting the jobs you are interviewing for. Or maybe they are wondering why you left your old job without securing a new one first.

You don't get around it. There are sooo many lawyers that employers can afford to be choosy. If they limit their candidate pool to the top 25 schools they still have a large enough candidate pool. All things being equal except for what school you went to, if you were a law firm would you rather be able to present a Fortune 500 client an associate to work on their project that went to Harvard or one that went to Ohio State? There are just too many lawyers.
As to the other posts, yes you do deal with HR people in the job search process as a lawyer. The large law firms have full time HR people, to facilitate with hiring, recruitment, retention, compensation, development, etc.