Cumming Students Prepare for Court This Weekend

The 24th season of the regional Georgia High School Mock Trial Competition is this Saturday, Feb. 11 and for the second year Cumming has its own region.

There will be about 100 students from all five Forsyth County high schools and one private school competing in multiple trials at various locations throughout downtown Cumming.

The competition teaches young people how the legal system works in a courtroom without the benefit of law school, according to Melissa Banker, an attorney and regional mock trial coordinator.

Teams of 14 students work with attorney coaches who train them on how to ask questions and listen to answers actively, including how to do opening statements and closing arguments.

"All the intricacies that we learned in law school and in the practice of law – these students are learning in a few months and putting on a full trial," said Banker.

The training also helps these students develop a number of skills, like public speaking, reasoning, critical thinking and listening.

Each team prepares their presentations from case materials provided by the High School Mock Trial Committee. This year the teams will be presenting a murder trial. The students will assume the roles of attorneys and witnesses based on the evidence and witness statements. Each will perform two full trials during the competition on Saturday.

Banker said as the competition proceeds the best two teams chosen by the committee will have to perform three full trials lasting about two hours. More than 50 attorneys will be volunteering as evaluators.

"They're going to be sitting in the jury box listening," said Banker. "They're not going to be deciding guilt or innocence, but evaluating the students and that's how we come up with the scores to determine who the winners are."

The events will take place in the County Administration Building, the and .

Team registration begins at 8 a.m. at the County Administration Building. The competition will go throughout the day with the last event of the day, the Championship Round, scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m. The public is welcome to attend.

The winner of each of the 17 regions across Georgia will head to Lawrenceville to compete for the state finals on March 16-17. The winner of the state competition will compete in the national tournament in Albuquerque, New Mexico on May 3-6.

Banker said the competition draws support from the community and local businesses like , and who will be providing food for the volunteers.