JQuery Validate: how to check validate completion before ajax submission

JQuery Validate: how to check validate completion before ajax submission

I have the Jquery validate plugin working fine when i click on the submit button normally but when I have added the ajax function to the form submit it's submitting the form even though the user is missing some fields that are required. How do I make sure the ajax is run after the validation is completed? I have tried adding the condition to check if the form is valid but it just breaks the ajax submit:
  3. var ajaxSubmit = function(e) {
  4.                        
  5.                 // fetch where we want to submit the form to
  6. if (!$('#abstract_form').valid()) {
  7. return false;
  8. }
  9. var url = $(e).attr('action');

  11.                 // fetch the data for the form
  12.                 var data = $(e).serializeArray();

  14.                 // setup the ajax request
  15.                 $.ajax({
  16.                     url: url,
  17.                     data: data,
  18.                     //dataType: 'json',                    
  19.                     success: function(result) {
  20.     $('#response').html(result);
  21.                                     $('#submit').attr('disabled','disabled');
  22. },
  23. error: function(){
  24. alert('failure');
  25. }

  27.                 });
  28.                 e.preventDefault();
  29. return false;
  30.             }

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.