Urmas Volens, a specialist counsel, has been practising law since 1998. He is head of our Real Estate & Construction Team in Estonia, which includes the Construction, Environmental and Real Estate Practices.

Before joining SORAINEN, Urmas worked for the Ministry of Justice from 1998, most recently holding the position of deputy secretary general of the Ministry's legal policy department.

Urmas has participated in drafting all the basic acts of private and public law – inter alia Law of Property Act, Law of Obligations Act, Land Register Act, several amendments to Commercial Code, Law of Succession Act, Code of Civil Procedure and Code of Enforcement Procedure, Personal Data Protection Act, Employment Contracts Act, Reorganization Act, etc - and in legislative proceeding of these in the parliament (Riigikogu).  Urmas also participated as a representative of Estonia in accession negotiations between Estonia and the European Union in the field of the law of obligations and company law, in EU legislative processes after accession at various levels (in the civil law and company law working groups of the European Commission and the Council), and represented Estonia at the European Committee on Legal Cooperation of the Council of Europe and at the Hague Conference on Private International Law. Urmas has been involved in preparing codification of environmental, social, construction and planning, and economic administrative law.

Urmas has lectured within the follow-up training programme for judges and public prosecutors and the pre-attestation follow-up training programme for notaries, as well as taken part in training and examining bailiffs, assistant judges and other court officials. In the field of his academic activities Urmas has obtained a 1-year scholarship of German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for LLM-studies in Cologne (October 2002-August 2003) and a 2-months research scholarship for doctoral studies in the University of Konstanz within the cooperation program of University of Konstanz and University of Tartu (October-November 2007). He is a recognised seminar and conference presenter and a lecturer in civil law at the University of Tartu Law Faculty. He was also in autumn 2011 on a 2-month secondment in Germany in law firm Hengeler Mueller through the IRZ Network programme organised by the German Foundation for International Legal Cooperation (IRZ Foundation) in cooperation with the Federal Bar and the German Bar Association.

Urmas is a recommended practitioner by Best Lawyers for corporate and M&A, government relations, insolvency and reorganisation, litigation practices.

Institute of Law, Estonia (BA, magna cum laude)
University of Cologne, Germany (LLM, summa cum laude)
University of Tartu, Estonia (Dr iur)

Academic Law Association of Estonia
Arbitration Court Board of the Estonian Chamber of Commerce and Industry
Advisory Committee of the Data Protection Inspectorate