Lawyer’s Legal Fight with School Is ‘Cautionary Tale of the Internet Age’
An estate planning lawyer in New York has rewritten his will and sued his son’s school over the suspension of the teen due to topless photos found on the youth’s laptop.
Lawyer Herbert Nass claims it was unfair for the Horace Mann School, his own alma mater, to punish his son but not the fellow students who took the laptop out of his backpack during an out-of-state convention and looked for the photos, the New York Times reports. Their curiosity had apparently gotten the best of them after the 10th grade girl in the photos admitted months earlier that she had taken off her top during a video chat, the Times says. Nass’ son had apparently downloaded the photos.
The Times calls the dispute “a cautionary tale of the Internet age.”
Nass has written two books, Wills of the Rich and Famous and The 101 Biggest Estate Planning Mistakes. He tells the Times he has rewritten his own will to make his five-figure bequest to the school conditional. He wouldn’t discuss the condition, but said he said he hopes it is satisfied.
Horace Mann sent a statement to the Times that said it believes it acted “entirely appropriately” and the suit is “an attempt to sanitize their child’s school record.”
