CHARLOTTE -- Defendants in the Mecklenburg County court system may be spending more time in jail because of the ransomware attack earlier this week.

Assistant Public Defender, Chrissie Nelson Rotko, doesn't know if her roughly 300 clients are in county jail.

"If they're unable to call us and tell us that they're in jail, we're unable to know that they are," Nelson Rotko said.

Because the system to look that up is out of service.

“And so we can't help them get out," Nelson Rotko said.

Is a client in custody? What's their court date? Can family visit? These are questions public defenders can’t answer because they don’t have access on the servers.

"The real impact is on our clients and their families because we can't answer the questions that we have on a daily basis," Nelson Rotko said.

Mecklenburg County has said it will have all services back up and running by the end of the year. It's processing several services by paper.

“The adversary has a lot of discretion about how long the recovery will take,” cyber security expert Brandon Martin said. He's the director of security measurement for Northstate Technology Solutions and said, for many organizations, it's nearly impossible to know whether hackers are gone.

“Specifically, once they have control of the environment,” Martin said. “They've often spread that control into other places that may not be detectable."

Mecklenburg County admits it's faced additional attacks as it's tried rebuilding and bringing back services. Fortunately, the county says those attacks have been unsuccessful.

“And I would hope that the court system take the time to make sure that justice is achieved," Nelson Rotko said. “Not only in a timely manner but also fairly to our clients."

A list of impacted county services can be found here.