In the first year of the second Trump administration, more than 350 cases have been filed to date in response to its actions, a record for any president over such a short period of time. There’s no reason to expect this deluge to stop, underscoring the need for strong public interest litigation. But because it remains an open question how much the administration actually intends to comply with the many court orders issued in response to its actions, litigation can only be part of a larger strategy to respond to what the administration is doing.

Take, for example, a recent court order restricting immigration stops, stemming from a case filed jointly by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Public Counsel, which barred authorities from stopping or arresting people based solely on racial profile (and then from detaining them without legal representation or due process). Last Monday, the Supreme Court lifted the lower court’s restrictions. But while the administration was appealing the order, it had not ceased the immigration raids, as the court had ordered. A purely legal strategy, in such a situation, is clearly inadequate for the work we are doing.

Pressure must be applied outside the courtroom as well as inside it. And despite the administration’s apparent indifference to public opinion, public sentiment is not irrelevant in the broader political and legal ecosphere. Even in the president’s case, there is evidence that he cares what certain people think, as exemplified by the now infamous TACO trade on Wall Street, and a stated openness to finding ways to legally employ migrant farm workers, to list two examples.

Moving the needle on public opinion can ultimately build a base of support for cultural and policy change that can stand the test of time. For this reason, litigation in an information vacuum not only represents a missed opportunity for advocates, but seeing litigation as one part of a larger storytelling campaign can change hearts and minds for the long term, across social groups and identities.

Read the full article about storytelling and public interest litigation by Mark Rosenbaum, Felix Schein, and Hillary Moglen at Stanford Social Innovation Review.