Get to acceptance, and then plan accordingly. The comments by lawyers on the Facebook page reflect understandable grief, fear, anger and shock. What they often do not reflect is acceptance of what is coming. Lawyers need to accept this new reality— and quick —before they can figure out the most effective way to utilize their talents.

Here is a truth that will be especially hard for lawyers to swallow: there is no legal strategy that can stop Trump.

To be sure, lawyers and organizations like the ACLU (full disclosure: my part-time employer) will fight and win righteous victories against some of Trump’s unconstitutional and illegal initiatives. But it is foolhardy to think that a war against autocracy is going to be won solely in courtrooms. Lawyers will be able to delay, mitigate and in some cases reverse Trump Administration policies, but these lawsuits are akin to forward defenses. We should expect most will eventually be overrun unless there is support coming from behind. Standing alone, and not fully integrated into a broader popular movement, these legal wins will ultimately prove to be hollow victories if democratic norms and institutions are crumbling around them.

What can stop autocracy is bodies in the streets and small “d” democracy. For example, there are going to be precious few legal or legislative strategies to stop the Trump Administration from trying to dump every last fossilized molecule of CO2 into the atmosphere. But campaign-driven protests and direct action — think Standing Rock and DAPL — are some of the best, maybe only, tools in the toolbox.

So if you’re presented with 100,000 enthusiastic lawyers who want to know how they can help, approach the question from this perspective: lawsuits alone aren’t going to win this thing, but providing legal support to vulnerable communities under attack, existing grassroots campaigns, and protesters putting their bodies on the line just might.

Think small. No, even smaller. Creating yet another national legal organization is simply not where the immediate or long term needs are. There are already dozens of visionary legal organizations working across the universe of issues likely to be under assault by a Trump Administration. Those organizations have spent decades building up infrastructure, hiring talented staff, and developing bold strategic thinking that makes them well suited for precisely this moment. If you’re a lawyer with resources, support them. But don’t duplicate them.

Where lawyers will be direly in need over the next four years is in the local community. Your Black Lives Matter chapter probably does not have a lawyer to consult with on a regular basis. Your local mosque is probably in the same spot. Your town’s small immigration bar may be wizards at delaying removal orders, but they are not in a position to monkeywrench the deportation machine by tying up the local detention center in lawsuits over the conditions of confinement. Your local environmental activists may be heroically ready to put their bodies between a drill bit and the earth, but they need to know they’ll be lawyers ready to get help get them out of jail (or keep them in jail, depending on the strategy).

Large national legal organizations will be effective at fighting the big battles, but they have neither the bandwidth nor expertise to provide the type of on-the-ground legal assistance that catalyzes critical movement building. Lawyers working at the community level are also singularly valuable for forging trusting relationships between local groups, and then connecting them with larger legal organizations when opportunities for impact litigation arise.

There are also long-term strategic reasons to think small. One of the things that sets the United States apart from a country like, say, Russia, is that federal control is far less monolithic and power much more decentralized. Much of what a Trump administration may seek to do will be almost impossible without the acquiescence or cooperation of local and state leaders. Strengthening networks and communities at the local level is not just where we are working by default given the bleak outlook at the federal level. It’s also a critical part of defending against and ultimately rolling back a Trump agenda.

Lawyer Up for Social Justice, and take a back seat. Finally, let’s be clear about what we should be aiming to build here. There are many complicated reasons for Trump’s ascension, but creating another national organization of professional elites who are dictating policy priorities among themselves is simply going to reinforce a dynamic that got us here in the first place.

Whiteboard brainstorming from a SURJ meeting (taken from SURJ’s website).

A better path is illuminated by groups like Showing Up for Racial Justice that are dedicated to harnessing white privilege in order to fight alongside people of color for justice and accountability. Being a lawyer is also a form of privilege. Treat it that way. Rather than spending time and money creating a new organization that run by lawyers that largely parallels existing groups, lawyers should be out canvassing their communities and asking how they can best weaponize their privilege to support the existing priorities of the grassroots movements that will ultimately win the day.