A Brazilian court has ordered McDonald’s to pay $17,500 to a former restaurant manager who gained 65 pounds during his 12 years on the job. The 32-year-old manager had alleged he felt he had to sample the food to make sure it was of high quality, the Associated Press reports. He said he was aware that McDonald’s hired mystery shoppers to inspect the restaurants and he wanted a good report. The manager also said the free lunches provided to employees contributed to his weight gain. McDonald’s told AP it is weighing its legal options. The company also noted that it…

A judge in Arizona's Maricopa County has issued a restraining order against an Arizona State University student who threatened in a Twitter post to punch a leader of a group opposing affirmative action. The tweet by 22-year-old Steve Russell summarized his anger at Ward Connerly in less than 140 characters, according to Arizona Central’s Political Insider blog and Yes on 107. “I would not hesitate to punch Connerly in the face if I saw him @SwitchWineBar,” it read. “Just sayin.” According to the Political Insider story, Russell “is from a generation where you post first, think later. That's how Russell…

Federal regulators have announced a $75 million pact with Verizon Wireless concerning some $50 million charged to about 15 million customers in "mystery" data fees of $1.99 per megabyte. In addition to refunding customers' money, Verizon will pay $25 million to the federal government, a record for an FCC enforcement action, reports the Los Angeles Times. A Fox News article provides additional details.

Freed yesterday after spending 18 years in prison for a capital crime he did not commit, Anthony Graves was initially convicted because of a "nightmare" of prosecutorial misconduct that included withholding evidence and threatening witnesses, Texas prosecutors said in a press conference today. DA Bill Parham of Washington and Burleson counties dismissed murder charges against Graves, after a special prosecutor who reinvestigated the case found no evidence linking the defendant to the slayings of a mother and five children in 1992 for which he was sent to death row, reports the Houston Chronicle. A co-defendant who has since been executed…

The Florida Bar had sought a six-month suspension, and then a state-court judge serving as a referee had recommended only a reprimand. But the Florida Supreme Court unanimously agreed that a name partner of the nation's largest minority-owned law firm should be suspended for his role in negotiating a $7 million class action settlement that was subsequently nixed. Henry "Hank" Adorno, the co-founder and president of 250-attorney Adorno & Yoss, now has until Nov. 16 to show cause why he should not be suspended for up to three years or even disbarred, reports the Daily Business Review in an article…

A word of advice to law firms: Don’t steal secretaries from your clients. And keep your yacht plans to yourself. Those kind of mistakes proved fatal for a law firm that once worked for Nestle, general counsel Richard Anderson revealed at an Australian legal conference. Lawyers Weekly has the story. Anderson ticked off the problems. There were the subtle legal mistakes that could have been forgiven. There was the revelation that the firm was acting for a major competitor. There was a misdirected fax showing a partner’s plans to buy a yacht. But the real deal breaker, Anderson said, came…

Most law departments measure metrics such as outside legal expenses and legal spending as a percentage of revenue, but few know how their stats measure up against others. Only 24 percent of law departments report that they have the ability to compare their performance against others, according to preliminary results of a survey (PDF) by the Association of Corporate Counsel. Now ACC plans to increase the percentage with a new online initiative, Corporate Counsel reports. The law departments will be invited to post their data anonymously on the ACC’s website, so they can compare how they are doing. The group…

Law schools awarded more than 43,000 J.D.s last year, an increase of 11.5 percent since 2000, even as the legal job market was contracting. Law schools are producing more lawyers than America needs, and many of the jobless grads are irate and vocal, Slate reports. “They’ve got a point,” the publication says. “The demand for lawyers has fallen off a cliff, both due to the short-term crisis of the recession and long-term changes to the industry, and is only starting to rebound. The lawyers that do have jobs are making less than they used to. At the same time, universities…

Retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor says two mistakes were made when thousands of Nevadans got a 1 a.m. recorded phone call from her earlier this week urging approval of a referendum for merit selection of judges. The timing, of course, was wrong. The call was supposed to have been placed at 1 p.m., and the robocall company that made the mistake has since been fired. But O’Connor also says she never authorized the use of her recorded statement used in the calls, according to the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times. The…

The social cliques you hated in law school still persist, and may be at your law firm. Being attractive and physically fit is a plus at law firms, just as it was in high school, Andrews Kurth partner Kathleen Wu writes in a column for Texas Lawyer. “Jocks, cheerleaders, nerds, bullies and drama geeks—firms have them all. They just wear nicer clothes now,” she says. Wu illustrates with a tour of a fictional law firm called Bigshot & Snooty, as seen through the eyes of Newby Associate. “The popular kids have a knack for finding each other,” Wu writes. “They're…