If you go yourself and plea not guilty (don't plead no contest), the judge will get to hear what you have to say. No, usually the judge leaves the full $ amount of the ticket, and either takes the points off, or offers traffic school to remove the points.
That is unless of course you are sincere in that you won't going 56mph. The "I dunno how fast I was going, but it definitely wasn't ___" line never works FWIW. Go back to where you got popped, the cop has to have 3 full seconds for the speed to register, etc. Look up online for other points if you are going to fight.
Then, of course, there's always the hope that the office won't show. Odds are probably one in 10 he won't. If it was a random cop that you flew by, your chances are better, but if they were doing speed control, bet the cop will be there.
Oh, I did forget about court fees. Like $35 the last time IIRC, dunno what it could be now. So if you did ticket clinic and they just got points off, it's ticket $ + clinic fees$ + court fees$ which is a good bit coin. Same thing as ticket $+court fees $+ ticket school $.