Recent law school graduates face the tightest job market in years. Amid lingering industrywide uncertainties, officials at some law schools are scrambling to ensure that underrepresented minorities get jobs, especially law schools not customarily tapped by the country's largest law firms. In some of the more striking measures, a dean will troop out of town to specifically lobby employers, or schools may piece together meager funds to hire their own graduates for academic work--a steppingstone position designed to bolster graduates' skills in further preparation for a legal career. These stepped-up efforts are in response to a tighter market in which only 88 percent of 2009 graduates got jobs, according to the latest statistical data available from the National Association for Law Placement (NALP). That figure is the lowest rate nationally since the last significant recession, in the mid-1990s. In the midst of the recession, many firms dramatically reduced the number of schools they visited for recruiting purposes. Despite the fewer campus visits by law firm recruiters, there is plenty that students and law school officials can do to help bolster employment prospects. Southern University Law Center Chancellor Freddie Pitcher Jr., for one, recognizes the need to be a zealous advocate for his graduates.