Milton High School’s mock trial team will be one of 16 teams competing in the Georgia Mock Trial Competition State Finals this weekend in Lawrenceville.

The team, which came in second place during the regional competition, was chosen as a wildcard team to compete at State.

“At first, we didn’t think we were going, so now we’re in a rush to get everything together,” said senior Andrew Barris, who has been on the team for four years. “But we’re very excited and running on adrenaline.”

This year’s mock trial case is State of Georgia v. Clay/Claire Stafford, in which a college student is on trial for possibly being an accessory to a knife assault at a party.

“The woman on trial was holding a video camera, so she is being charged with being a party to the assault,” said mock trials team coach Terri Nicholson. “It’s a little tricky. The mock trial committee always writes the case to where the outcome is never going to be clear.”

The teams are evaluated on their ability to make a logical, cohesive and persuasive presentation and are scored through a point system. Verdicts are not handed out.

Though the cases are not always as intense as this year’s, Andrew, who plays an attorney, says he prefers to be dramatic in the courtroom. During his freshman year, he got to cross-examine a witness.

“What I got to do is go from having the witness on my side—being nice, asking open-ended questions—to going at them and treating them a hostile witness,” he said. “We always find a reason to yell at the witnesses.”

But according to Andrew, the mock trials team is about more than drama, and some team members even said they plan to study law in college.

“I think some people come in here thinking this is like ‘Law and Order,’” he said. “They don’t realize the procedural parts and that you have to memorize pages and pages of statements and evidence.”

To prepare for the competition, the team has been meeting three times a week, in addition to their regular practice meetings.

“We’re really hoping to go on to the second day of [the competition],” Andrew said. “We’ve never gone on to the second day in all of Milton’s history.”

The winner of the state finals will represent Georgia in the national tournament to be held in May in Philadelphia.