The following semester, Professor Callahan, the school's most respected teacher, decides to take on some first-year interns to help with a high-profile case. Among those chosen are Elle, Warner, and Vivian. Callahan is defending a prominent fitness instructor named Brooke Windham, who is one of Elle's role models. Accused of murdering her husband, Brooke is unwilling to produce an alibi (she later reveals to Elle that she was having liposuction, a fact that would ruin her reputation, which Elle promises not to disclose). Vivian earns a new respect for Elle, and even reveals that Warner could not get into Harvard without his father's help. Emmett Richmond, Callahan's junior partner, has also taken notice of Elle's potential after she discovers that Enrique, Brooke's supposed lover, was actually gay when he makes an offhand insult about her shoe design, something a straight man would have no interest is. One night, Callahan attempts to seduce Elle, who now believes that is the reason why she got the internship. Devastated, she quits and nearly returns home to California, telling Emmett what happened. When Emmett explains how Callahan's behavior caused Elle to quit her internship, Brooke fires Callahan and replaces him with Elle (under the guidance of Emmett, as she is only a law student, citing a Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling that law students may represent clients as long as they do so under the supervision of a licensed attorney). Elle begins to cross-examine Brooke's step-daughter Chutney, and she notices important inconsistencies in her story: Chutney testified that she was home during her father's murder but did not hear the gunshot because she was in the shower after getting her hair permed that morning, but Elle points out that washing permed hair within the first 24 hours would deactivate the ammonium thioglycolate, a fact Chutney would have known about as she had admitted to getting a perm before, and points out that Chutney's curls are still intact. With her story falling apart, Chutney confesses that she intended to kill Brooke because she hated the fact that her father married someone who was the same age as she is, but she inadvertently killed her father instead.