legitimate. they are. >> attorney ashley pennington oversees the public defender's office for charleston and one other county in south carolina. >> the south carolina public defender system is symptomatic of an overall, grossly underfunded legal system. >> how are you? >> when you have 700 people in jail and 20 lawyers to deal with that 700, the odds are stacked against you. what's going on is that the lawyers are in court all the time. as a result, the ability to get over and actually have that face time is just very scant. >> this is something that you're going to have to do yourself. >> 150, 160 is about average for our office. many times, the smaller charges take just as much time as the larger charges. that's very difficult, trying to balance all of their needs. >> the personal contact with an attorney is less important than it was 20 years ago.