Every week, Manhattan attorney Carolyn A. Kubitschek said she fields calls from prospective clients who claim their civil rights have been violated by overzealous child protective caseworkers investigating allegations of child abuse.

“The investigators do this enormous, intrusive investigation…quizzing young children about intimate details of their lives and then say, ‘Oh there was really nothing here’ and leave the family to scratch their heads and pick up the pieces,” Ms. Kubitschek of Lansner Kubitschek Schaffer said in an interview.