INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Counting billable time in six-minute increments is the most annoying part of being a lawyer
It leads law firms to conservatively under-bill
And it leaves lawyers stuck manually filling out timesheets after a long day when they want to go home to their families.Life is already
short, as Ping CEO and co-founder Ryan Alshak knows too well
The former lawyer spent years caring for his mother as she battled a brain tumor before her passing
A led by Upfront Ventures, along with BoxGroup, First Round, Initialized and Ulu Ventures
workers demanded easier file sharing
the Lee case, a client phone call for the Sriram case
There are timesheets built into legal software suites like MyCase, legal billing software like TimeSolv and one-off tools like Time Miner
They typically offer timers that lawyers can manually start and stop on different devices, with some providing tracking of scheduled
appointments, call and text logging, and integration with billing systems.Ping goes a big step further
It uses AI and machine learning to figure out whether an activity is billable, for which client, a description of the activity and its
codification beyond just how long it lasted
could run a more efficient firm.Along the way, Ping has to avoid any embarrassing data breaches or concerns about how its scanning
technology could violate attorney-client privilege
If it can win this lucrative first business in legal, it could barge into the consulting and accounting verticals next to grow truly
huge.With eager customers, a massive market, a weak status quo and a driven founder, Ping just needs to avoid getting in over its heads with
Spent well, the startup could leap ahead of the less tech-savvy competition.Alshak seems determined to get it right
I am deeply motivated to build something that lasts .
