A civil forfeiture hearing in Texas’s 394th Judicial District Court took an unexpected turn on February 9, 2021, when attorney Rod Ponton appeared on screen not as himself, but as a fluffy white kitten.
Ponton, a Presidio County attorney, was using his secretary’s computer to join the virtual hearing on Zoom. Unbeknownst to him, a cat filter — likely activated earlier by his assistant’s daughter — was still switched on. When Judge Roy B. Ferguson pointed out the filter, Ponton calmly replied that he was ready to proceed regardless, adding the now-famous line assuring the court he was not a cat.
The judge, notably, kept the hearing moving with professionalism, and by all accounts nobody in the virtual courtroom mocked Ponton for the mishap. Ferguson later shared the clip publicly, and it quickly spread across Twitter and YouTube, racking up millions of views within days. One report noted the clip had been viewed 17 million times on Twitter alone shortly after it was posted.
The following day, Ponton appeared on NBC’s TODAY show to discuss his sudden internet fame. He explained he had no idea how the filter ended up on the computer, and took the whole episode in good humor, noting it could happen to anyone. He confirmed that during his TODAY appearance he was not using any filter.
Ponton told the BBC he was simply trying to roll with the unexpected attention, and said he hadn’t anticipated how quickly the moment would spread worldwide.
The incident became widely known online as “Zoom Cat Lawyer,” and has since been documented as a notable early-pandemic viral moment, reflecting how routine virtual court proceedings — which by 2021 numbered in the millions across Texas alone — occasionally produced unscripted, human moments during a period when nearly all legal work had shifted online.
