By: Jeff Li
The courtroom is a serious setting. Some judges may throw out some humourous remarks in the courtroom, but a lawyer dares not. In the eyes of your opponent, a joke can be conceived as satire or attack, adding animosity no matter how good your intentions are. Worse, even the smallest joke can make you look insincere before the judge, and almost always weaken your case.
However, with the aid of technology, a Texas lawyer, Rod Ponton, has achieved what a lawyer dares not do: he made people laugh (if not the judge) by appearing in the courtroom as a fluffy cute white kitten!
That happened in Justice Roy Ferguson’s 394th District Court of Texas, on February 9, 2021.
Soon began the debugging process, which one might think to be arduous. But not necessarily so. The judge appeared to be a tech expert, and signaled to Ponton at the very beginning:
“I believe you have a filter turned on in the video settings,” said Ferguson. “You might want to, uh, take a look.”
The cat’s big and telling, yet somehow cunning eyes rolled down, with a kind of sorrow. Apparently Mr. Ponto was not at the same level of the judge in terms of technology:
“…I don’t know how to remove it. I’ve got my assistant here, she’s trying to. But I’m prepared to go forward with it. I am here live.”
Then came the most famous declaration: “I’m not a cat.”
“I can … I can see that,” said the judge. Then he tried to walk Ponton through the problem: “I think if you click the up arrow next to the …” .
Eventually Ponton was able to get rid of his cat mask. Ponton later explained that he was using his legal assistant’s computer for the Zoom call and it should be her daughter who had added the filter at some point.
This led Justice Ferguson to tweet some practical advice about the profession.
“If a child used your computer, before you join a virtual hearing check the Zoom Video Options to be sure filters are off. This kitten just made a formal announcement on a case.”
With the message was a 42-second zoom video that has immediately gone viral:
Thanks to COVID, virtual court hearings have become a daily routine for the court. As Justice Ferguson put it, IT support is just part of his job as a result.
“These fun moments are a by-product of the legal profession’s dedication to ensuring that the justice system continues to function in these tough times,” Ferguson said on Twitter. “Everyone involved handled it with dignity, and the filtered lawyer showed incredible grace. True professionalism all around!”
And what a good laugh it gave to the world.