Welcome to Monday, the 98th anniversary of Baltimore native Babe Ruth’s first major league home run. Here are some news items to get your week started.

– The West, Texas, fertilizer plant was woefully under insured.

– Is there “a fundamental right … to engage in intimate contact“?

– A new book on The Roberts Court will hit stores this week.

– Businesses speak well of the aforementioned court.

The legal system will get a public airing next Monday as the popular Stoop Storytelling Series trains its spotlight on the law.

The show’s theme, “Justice Talking: Stories about crime, punishment, and life (and death) in the legal system,” will draw personal essays from a panel of locals at Centre Stage.

Story tellers include former Baltimore Police Chief Frederick H. Bealefeld III (pictured), Fox 45 producer Stephen Janis, public defender Carol Dee Huneke and Mark Farley Grant, whose life sentence for murder was commuted last year after he spend almost 30 years incarcerated.

The show is a tribute to the 50th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court case Gideon v. Wainwright and is co-sponsored by the Open Society Institute-Baltimore.

Prior to the stories, author Karen Houppert will present her new book, “Chasing Gideon: the Elusive Quest for Poor People’s Justice” at a launch party at Centre Stage.

Welcome to Monday and a week in which we might crown another Baltimore sports champion. Here are some news items to get it all started.

– Retired justice pens book about the Supreme Court.

– Can a condemned killer reject a governor’s reprieve?

– Small-state advantage in U.S. Senate faces legal challenges.

– One lawyer’s “copyright protection” is another’s “fraud on the court.”

The stars literally aligned in Baltimore City Circuit Court as not one, but two Baltimore celebrities showed up for jury duty Tuesday. Both Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps AND celebrity chef Duff Goldman reported to court to perform their civic responsibilities.

While our trial courts reporter said she did not see any crowds or chaos at the courthouse today, The Baltimore Sun reported Phelps created a small uproar, with not only prospective jurors but courthouse employees jockeying for pictures with the Olympic gold medalist.

It eventually got to the point where Phelps had to be taken to another room and the rest of the jurors were given a speech about courthouse conduct, The Sun reported.

Cake impresario Goldman is known for his show, “Ace of Cakes,” about his Baltimore bakery, Charm City Cakes.

Apparently being rich and famous is not a reason to get out of jury duty and other celebrities have shown up at their hometown courthouses over the years. Anderson Cooper apparently fell asleep at jury duty. Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses and Sarah Jessica Parker love jury duty. Even The Material Girl has shown up to perform her civic duty.

The General Assembly’s pit bull task force met Thursday for the first time since this summer.

While no concrete decisions were made and only six of the 10 members of the task force attended, the group discussed how to determine whether a dog is at fault in the case of an attack.

As a recap: The task force is supposed to discuss legislation in response to an Court of Appeals decision earlier this year that ruled pit bulls are “inherently dangerous” and landlords and owners are liable in the case of an attack.

In a special session this summer, the General Assembly tried, but failed, to pass legislation dealing with the issue. Both the Senate and House of Delegates agreed that landlords should not be liable in attacks. While the Senate passed a bill making all dog owners liable in the case of a dog bite, the House of Delegates wanted narrower legislation that would limit liability only when a dog is running around “at large.”

In Thursday’s hour-and-a-half meeting, the group discussed the complexities of determining whether a dog bite is intentional and if a dog is at fault if he/she is provoked by a human.

“Is there any state in which it is allowed for a dog to be cross-examined?” Sen. Brian E. Frosh, D-Montgomery, questioned during the work session.

Del. Benjamin F. Kramer, D-Montgomery,  said other states have had animal psychologists testify in court.

“We have to look at this from an animal’s perspective,” Kramer said. “From an animal’s perspective, this was provocation.”

Frosh, however, questioned Kramer.

“Do we really want to go down that road?” Frosh said.

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Asked: Our weekly question to the In-House community

In-house legal departments are getting fed up with paying outside counsel for soft costs like food and photocopying fees, The Wall Street Journal reported this week.

In-house counsel are pushing back against law firms charging them for legal research, photocopying and word processing costs according to a study cited in the article.

Companies’ legal departments argue that these costs are included in law firm overhead and therefore should not be charged to them.

So, here’s our question for you:

Should companies be charged for soft costs like catered lunches and photocopying by outside counsel?

Leave a comment below or email me.

Need to Know:

• Ballard Spahr’s Baltimore office and Capital One’s in-house legal department teamed up last week in Bethesda to provide free estate planning services to first responders.
• Rite Aid’s former general counsel loses a third case against his ex-boss.
• Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. named a new general counsel.
• Law schools are offering more courses for in-house careers. (The Daily Record reported on the trend in Maryland earlier this year.)
• Kia Motors puts outside counsel through a technology test before hiring.
•  Transocean Ltd.’s general counsel resigned.
•  Spirit AeroSystems Inc. named a new general counsel.
• University of California San Francisco’s chief legal counsel retired after 30 years.

• Follow us on Twitter for In-House news and discussion: @TDRInHouse
• Want the latest on who’s been hired, fired or moving and shaking in between? Head to our Movers and Shakers page to find out.
• For networking events and other happenings this week in Maryland, check out our calendar of events.
• Get the very latest updates from our law reporters on Twitter: @TDRKristi, @Steve_Lash, @TDRBeth
• Check out The Daily Record on Facebook.

The Maryland Legal Aid Bureau is sponsoring two Pro Bono Days – free legal clinics - this month. The first will be held this Saturday from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Randallstown branch of the Baltimore County Public Library (8604 Liberty Road in Randallstown). The second will be held next Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Maryland Legal Aid’s Baltimore office (500 E. Lexington Street).

Volunteer attorneys will provide consultations in the areas of divorce and custody, landlord/tenant, wills & advance directives, bankruptcy, expungements, government benefits, criminal and consumer law.

Private lawyers who wish to volunteer their services can call 443-451-2810.

Several local lawyers are receiving high honors these days.

– Victoria Sulerzyski, an attorney at Ober|Kaler, received the 2012 Volunteer of a Lifetime Award from United Way of Central Maryland in a ceremony Sept. 20.

Sulerzyski has volunteered for over 10 years at places like PACT: Helping Children with Special Needs; the Kennedy Krieger Institute; Maryland Center for Developmental Disabilities; and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

– Seven local firms received recognition as  ”highly recommended” Maryland firms in the newest edition of “Benchmark Litigation.”

The list includes DLA Piper, Hogan Lovells, Kramon & Graham P.A., Miles & Stockbridge P.C., Whiteford Taylor Preston LLP, Venable LLP and Zuckerman Spaeder LLP. Attorneys and these and other firms were also named “Local Litigation Stars.”

— Phoebe Haddon, dean of the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, is hosting this week the 2012 Teaching Conference of the Society of American Law Teachers.

Haddon won the society’s “Great Teacher” award last year. The conference hosts more than 150 law professors Thursday through Saturday. This year’s theme is “Teaching Social Justice, Expanding Access to Justice: The Role of Legal Education and the Legal Profession.”

On the set of "Whirlwind" at DLA Piper's Baltimore office. (Photo courtesy of DLA Piper.)

Hollywood is back in Baltimore.

Clayton LeBouef, an actor from “The Wire,” filmed scenes from his new movie, called “Whirlwind,” at DLA Piper’s Baltimore office last week in the main reception area.

On “The Wire,” LeBouef played Orlando, a front man who ran a strip club for the Barksdale drug organization. LeBouef is also known for his role as Col. George Barnfather in “Homicide: Life on the Street.”

DLA Piper’s glass office building has been a Hollywood hot spot in recent years. Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s HBO comedy, “Veep,” shot several scenes for its pilot episode at the building. Several scenes in the 2005 movie “Syriana,” starring George Clooney, also were filmed at The Marbury Building at 6225 Smith Ave.

The recent movie shoot at DLA Piper is just one of a number of Charm City’s recent forays into the film industry. In addition to “Veep,” the HBO movie “Game Change,” about John McCain’s and Sarah Palin’s 2008 bid for the presidency and vice presidency, was filmed in Baltimore. (Both “Game Change” and “Veep” won awards at Sunday’s Emmys.)

The Netflix show “House of Cards,” starring Kevin Spacey has also been around town, filming at a sound stage in Edgewood, as well as in the city in places like the Peabody Institute in Mount Vernon.

All are part of an effort by Maryland to boost the film industry in the state.

Baltimore’s “Warrior Lawyer” is waging battle a little farther south down I-95.

J. Wyndal Gordon, the “Warrior Lawyer,” unleashed an attack on Washington, D.C., Councilman Michael Brown in a post on Facebook this week.

“I never was much into D.C. politics, but I do know a Rat when I smell one,” the post begins.

Gordon is representing Brown’s former campaign manager, Hakim Sutton. Brown fired Sutton after discovering campaign funds were missing. Gordon wrote the post after Brown held a news conference announcing the $114,000 in missing campaign money.

Gordon went on to accuse Brown of “skulduggery and debauchery,” saying Brown failed to properly pay employees and hinted that Brown himself had taken the missing money.

“It is due to his own laziness, arrogance, narcissism and greed that Brown finds himself in the position he’s in today [with little money], — not some false claim of theft as he would have the public to wholesale believe,” Gordon wrote in the post.