Netflix just released the first season (or should we say "series" since this is a UK-based production?) of "The Stranger," a thriller based on Harlan Coben's novel, about "the lives of suburban families whose secrets and lies are made public by the appearance of a stranger."
Why we're posting notice here that you should watch it is because the main character is Adam Price, and the backdrop to the thriller is that he's a lawyer who is fighting expropriation (what we Yanks call "takings"), and is knee-deep in a case involving the threatened taking of a retired police officer's supposedly blighted home for the local council's redevelopment project. We just started watching.
What makes this story line especially compelling is that the legal aspects of the story are based on a real case in which our New Jersey colleague Tony Della Pelle represented the property owner. In that case, the property owner was obviously not a retired English Bobby, but Johnnie Stevens a decorated veteran of the U.S. Army's famed "Black Panthers" (an African-American tank unit in the ETO), whose home stood in the way of a New Jersey redevelopment project. Tony consulted with the novel's author to make sure the legal details rang true. (And in what we assume is a nod to the Jersey roots of the story, in Episode 2 the lawyer and his neighbor do some Springsteen carpool karaoke on the drive to town.)
A sample of the eminent domain-y dialogue from Episode 1:
Right of way agent: "You're his lawyer, how much does he want?"Adam Price: "A billion pounds."
From Episode 2's courtroom scene:
Local Council's [unctuous] lawyer [who happens to have a surprise connection to Price]: "Two years ago, [the town's] councilors deemed this street as fit for slum clearance. And now here we are offering two-hundred-and-forty highly desirable one, two, and three-bedroom apartments, twenty-five percent of which are for affordable housing, and yet one -- one man, his client -- wants to derail a better life for 500 people for no better reason than his derelict home is his castle."Adam Price: "My client has rights."Witness [redeveloper]: "The Council issued a compulsory purchase order against them."Adam Price: "And we will fight them and you and your company every inch of the way. Not the least because you have no intention of providing affordable housing. No, once construction starts, you will claim that costs are rising and this 25% will shrink to 20% and then 10%.". . . .Unctuous Lawyer [gesturing grandly]: "The Council needs this. The country needs this. More housing is everything. A man without a home ceases to be a man. ... I am offering to empower 500 people to your single solitary one."
Based on those, we're going to apply for CLE credit for watching.
