Family Defense

Carolyn Kubitschek is one of the nation's leading civil rights litigators on behalf of mothers, fathers, and children who are caught up in the child welfare system. Since 1991, she has been a law partner with David Lansner in the law firm of Lansner & Kubitschek, which they founded as a private firm in the public interest, advocating for the constitutional rights of parents and children, using an interdisciplinary approach of attorneys, social workers, legal assistants, law students, and experts.

Ms. Kubitschek teaches child welfare law as an adjunct professor at Cardozo Law School, Yeshiva University, and serves as vice-president of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform. She has written numerous articles on the rights of children and families, child welfare, and domestic violence. Among her many precedential cases, she litigated the case of Nicholson v. Scoppetta, in which both a federal court judge and the highest court of New York ruled that the government cannot remove children from their mothers or prosecute mothers for child abuse simply because the mothers are victims of domestic violence.