- About
About USC Gould
USC Gould is a top-ranked law school with a 115-year history and reputation for academic excellence. We are located on the beautiful 228-acre USC University Park Campus, just south of downtown Los Angeles.
- Academics
Academics
Learn about our rigorous and interdisciplinary curriculum, our invaluable experiential learning opportunities, and the breadth and depth of our specialized areas of concentration and certificate offerings.
- Admissions
Admissions
USC Gould helps prepare you for a stellar legal career. You can pursue a JD degree, one of our numerous graduate and international offerings, or an online degree or certificate.
- Student Life
Student Life
Participate in an unparalleled learning experience with diversity of people and thought. Get involved in the law school community and participate in activities that enhance your studies.
- Careers
Careers
We work closely with students, graduates and employers to support successful career goals and outcomes. Our overall placement rate is consistently strong, with 94 percent of our JD class employed within 10 months after graduation.
- Faculty
Faculty
Our faculty is distinguished for its scholarship, as well as for its commitment to teaching. Our 12:1 student-to-faculty ratio creates an intimate and collegial learning environment.
- Alumni and Giving
Alumni and Giving
The global Trojan network of more than 10,000 law alumni and donors include recognized leaders in numerous fields who are deeply committed to supporting student and law school success.

Time Tracker
- ABOUT USC GOULD
- A MESSAGE FROM THE DEAN
- + HISTORY OF USC GOULD
- + NEWS
- + EVENTS
- BOARD OF COUNCILORS
- ABA REQUIRED DISCLOSURES
- VISIT US
- SOCIAL MEDIA
- + CONTACT US
Wednesday, November 21, 2018
With his award-winning startup, Ryan Alshak (JD 2013) seeks to transform the way lawyers work
By Julie Riggott
![]() |
Ryan Alshak (JD '13) |
What is the bane of every lawyer’s existence? Certainly one of them is keeping track of billable hours.
Lawyer-turned-entrepreneur Ryan Alshak JD ’13 saw this problem as a business opportunity — and a way to make a difference. He quit a BigLaw job two years ago to launch Ping and transform how lawyers track their time.
“Our purpose is really to change the way that people think about working,” says Alshak, Ping founder and CEO. “It’s to first rid lawyers of the things they hate to do most, such as timekeeping, but the ultimate goal is to allow professionals to understand where their time is being spent and how to optimize that time.”
Instead of giving law firms a data dump, listing the time and duration of every email and phone call on a given date, Ping curates that timesheet. Ping’s AI is able to determine if a given activity is billable, which client matter it relates to and what the legal code is — across all apps, programs and devices. “That’s really what differentiates us from any other player on the market,” Alshak says.
In 2017, Ping was named Legal Tech Startup of the Year at the American Bar Association’s first pitch competition. Since then, the company has seen many developments. “We ran a two-week pilot with the product, and it resulted in a 13 percent revenue lift across pilot users,” Alshak says. “We’re talking about massive economics by changing the way a firm operates.”
Now, Ping is targeting and rolling out the product to their next three or four firms. They also received significant funding and are aggressively growing out the team (from their current team of five software engineers, a designer, a businessperson and AI engineers with PhDs in particle physics).
And a milestone is just on the horizon. “We are in the process of closing our U.S. partner firm, which I can’t go public about yet, but it’s one of the largest firms in the world,” Alshak adds.
RECENT NEWS

Making Human Connections
February 19, 2019
USC Gould's Student Support office leads a conversation on diversity and wellness

Meet the Lawyer-Turned-Professor Behind Gould’s Small Business Clinic
February 14, 2019
Prof. Chasalow and the SBC have helped nearly 3,000 clients

Providing Powerful Insight and Perspective
January 24, 2019
IHRC students toured and reported on violations at Southern California detention centers