Welcome back to Ahead of the Curve. I'm Karen Sloan, legal education editor at Law.com, and I'll be your host for this weekly look at innovation and notable developments in legal education.

This week, I'm taking a deeper dive into the new entry level legal employment figures released last week by the American Bar Association. Former University of North Carolina law professor Bernie Burk and University of Chicago Law career services dean Lois Casaleggi weigh in on what those numbers tell us about 2020 and beyond. Next, U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin will return to his former stomping ground at American University Washington College of Law to deliver the school's commencement address. Read on and stay safe!

Please share your thoughts and feedback with me at [email protected] or on Twitter: @KarenSloanNLJ

Why the Latest ABA Job Numbers Are Pretty Darn Good

Last week, the American Bar Association released its annual trove of data on how the most recent class of J.D. grads did on the job market. It was hotly anticipated (by me, at least) because the COVID-19 pandemic really upended the employment search process for a lot of students and until now it wasn't entirely clear how much outcomes did or didn't change. We already knew that Big Law hiring remaining fairly steady, but other segments of the legal market tend to be harder to track.