September 4, 2026 – Off the Record Alex Guirguis and Wired for Peace Jeremy Pollack, PhD

Alex Guirguis – Co-Founder & CEO of Off the Road, INC Not everyone in the country has the same access to the legal system and just justice in general. And that’s part of the reason we started Off The Record was to level the playing field. Alex Guirguis is the Co-Founder and CEO of Off The Record, Inc., a legal technology company that is making it easier for people to find and hire experienced local attorneys. The company began by helping drivers fight traffic tickets and has since expanded its marketplace to handle a broader range of traffic and criminal matters, including DUIs, suspended licenses, misdemeanors, and felonies. Off The Record operates nationwide and uses technology and its SmartMatch system to connect clients with attorneys based on factors including location and experience in the relevant court. The platform has contested more than 500,000 cases and processed more than 2.3 million ticket submissions. Before becoming an entrepreneur, Alex spent six years as a software engineer at Amazon, where he worked on large scale technology systems and was an early member of the Fulfillment by Amazon team. The idea for Off The Record emerged after a 2014 camping trip to Crater Lake, Oregon, when Alex and several friends received speeding tickets on their drive back to Seattle. Alex discovered that finding and hiring the right local attorney involved phone calls, paperwork, uncertainty about pricing, and little useful information about which lawyer had the strongest record in a particular court. Convinced that technology could create a much simpler experience, Alex left Amazon in 2015 and co-founded Off The Record with fellow Amazon engineer Mark Mikhail and his brother Chris Guirguis, who was then an engineer at Microsoft. Alex approaches the legal industry with the mindset of a software engineer, looking for complicated processes that technology can make simpler, more transparent, and easier to navigate. Off The Record allows users to submit information about their case, receive transparent pricing, get matched with a local attorney, communicate with their lawyer, and receive case updates through one platform. The company reports a 97 percent favorable outcome rate for traffic ticket cases and works with more than 1,000 partner attorneys across all 50 states. Alex’s larger vision is to apply the marketplace model beyond traffic law and make hiring the right lawyer as straightforward as using other modern digital services. Jeremy Pollack – CEO and Founder of Pollack Peacebuilding Systems and Author of Wired for Peace: Using 7 Neuroscience-Based Principles to Resolve Conflicts If you’re taking on authority or responsibility, it’s really your responsibility to stay humble and to stay curious and to try to resolve conflicts. Jeremy Pollack, PhD, is a social and organizational psychologist, conflict resolution expert, entrepreneur, and author of Wired for Peace: Using 7 Neuroscience-Based Principles to Resolve Conflicts. He is the founder and CEO of Pollack Peacebuilding Systems, a consulting and training firm that helps organizations reduce workplace conflict, strengthen leadership, and build cultures of trust, collaboration, and psychological safety. For more than a decade, Jeremy has worked with executives, founders, leadership teams, human resources professionals, and organizations seeking practical solutions to workplace tension and interpersonal conflict. His work combines insights from psychology, neuroscience, organizational behavior, and peace studies to help leaders understand how stress, fear, and perceived threats influence decision making, communication, and team performance. Through coaching, training, and conflict intervention programs, he helps organizations transform conflict from a costly obstacle into a catalyst for growth, innovation, and stronger relationships. Jeremy is also the founder of Peaceful Leaders Academy, where he teaches leaders how to create environments that encourage healthy disagreement, productive dialogue, and sustainable organizational success. His research focuses on the cognitive, behavioral, cultural, and neuropsychological factors that drive conflict and cooperation, with particular attention to how acute stress responses affect leadership effectiveness and workplace dynamics. As a sought-after speaker, consultant, and educator, Jeremy has helped organizations across a wide range of industries improve communication, increase employee engagement, strengthen workplace culture, and navigate difficult conversations with confidence. Through his writing, teaching, and consulting, he is dedicated to helping leaders build more peaceful, productive, and high-performing organizations.