Legal battles -How to win!

Judicial  Reviews are expensive, time consuming but well worth the effort!
We at Wards Corner have already set a precedent forcing local councils to conduct a proper Equalities Impact assessments before approving planning applications. We got to this AFTER the permission had been granted by Haringey Council, by launching a Judicial Review. 
The Judicial review was indeed expensive, and it was a huge undertaking for us as a self-funded grass-roots community organisation, but we managed to engage the local community to raise funds, and also enlisted the support of Planning Aid for London, Glasshouse, Friends of the Earth and others to put our case together. 
Apart from getting organised to raise funds locally, we think the key to this is building a strong network with the existing architectural and planning expert organisations! 
A good lawyer, possibly working part pro-bono, is a big help too!
What are your experiences?