Attorney Jack Newlin comes home one evening to find his wife dead on the floor. Convinced that he knows who killed her, and determined to hide the truth, Jack decides to make it look as though he committed the felony. Before calling the police, he stages the crime, so that the evidence incriminates him. And to hammer the final nail in his own coffin, he hires Mary Di Nunzio, a reluctant rookie and the most inexperienced lawyer he can find, at a hot Philadelphia firm. However, hiring Mary is where Jack makes his mistake.
She doubts his confession and starts to investigate the murder. Mary's ethics and instincts tell her she can't defend a man who wants only one thing, which is to convict himself. But because she is intelligent, strong-minded, and courageous, she decides to stick with the case and see it through to the final verdict. And nothing is ever certain until the final moment of truth.