Yukiko, wearing a grey sweater, smiles in a photograph taken in the Jackman Law Building
SJD Candidate
Thesis title:
Income/assistance: five figures between family and social assistance law
Office in Falconer Hall
84 Queen's Park
Toronto, M5S 2C5

I am a doctoral candidate in the Faculty of Law with a collaborative specialization in sexual diversity studies at the Mark S. Bonham Centre. I teach part of the Faculty's LLM seminar and I am a Course Instructor at the Women and Gender Studies Institute.

I am a critical legal scholar interested in family law, poverty law, and law and gender. My dissertation project is about the rules which govern the family lives of poor people. I am interested in how the rules of family law and social assistance determine the choices poor people have about their relationships and their work. I pay particular attention to how ideas of gender, disability, sex and race weave in and out of the welfare state's engagement with law.

Prior to commencing my doctoral studies, I worked in the non-profit sector and in publishing. 

Education
LLM (Distinction), The University of Hong Kong
BA (Hons) in Law, University of Cambridge
Awards and Distinctions
Mary H. Beatty Fellowship (2024-2025)
David Rayside Graduate Students Award (2025)
Centre for Ethics Doctoral Fellowship (Returning) (2024-2025)
Honourable Mention, Roderick A Macdonald Essay Prize (2025)
David Rayside Graduate Students Award (2024)
Centre for Ethics Doctoral Fellowship (2023-2024)
Mary H. Beatty Fellowship (2023-2024)
Graduate Fellowship in Women's Rights (2022-2025)
Hong Kong Scholarship for Excellence (2015-2018)
Other information

Co-organizer, Feminist Legal Theory and the Family conference (May 2024 at the Institute for Feminist Legal Studies, Osgoode Hall Law School; May 2025 at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law)

Member, Organizing committee, Sex Salon speaker series, Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies (2023-2024)

Co-organizer, Toronto Law and Political Economy Reading Group (Spring 2023)

Organizer, SJD works-in-progress group (Fall 2022-Fall 2024)

Selected Publications

Yukiko Kobayashi Lui, “Anti-Carceral Feminism and the Exceptionalism of Intimate Partner Violence: A Comment on Ahluwalia v Ahluwalia”, (2024) 2:1 TMU Law Review 146.

Research Interests
Administrative Law
Critical Legal Theory
Family Law
Feminist Analysis of Law
Labour Law
Political Philosophy and Theory
Sexuality and the Law
Supervisor
Committee Members
Linda White (Department of Political Science)