Urmas Volens was one of the most renowned Estonian legal scholars, who contributed to Estonian law in several roles: as a justice of the Supreme Court, a top official at the Ministry of Justice, an attorney-at-law and a university lecturer.
Urmas was a great colleague who always dedicated time to mentor, support and encourage younger colleagues. Urmas was an outstanding thinker and visionary, finding innovative and value-oriented solutions in situations where there was no readily available answer from legal practice. No legal problem seemed too difficult for him, and even more so – the more complicated, the better.
Urmas was a very hard-working person. In addition to his work as a judge and attorney, he found time to teach students at universities, going in depth and having eye to detail. He contributed to the compilation of legal literature in Estonian, participating in the writing of annotated editions of legal acts. He always considered substance more important than drawing attention to his own person.
Urmas was a team worker whose passion was leadership – creating systems, structures and organizational culture based on values. He always took responsibility and demanded the same from others, thus inspiring those around him to realize their potential.
In all this, he was always humane and supportive and had a great sense of humour. He believed that both mind and body must be strong and inspired others with athletic achievements and iron self-discipline.
Urmas was a co-founder of NOVE in 2016. Immediately before rejoining NOVE at the beginning of 2026, Urmas worked as a Justice of the Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court for five years, also fulfilling the role of the Chairman of the Civil Chamber for part of the time.
After returning from his position as a Justice of the Supreme Court, he only managed to spend a little more than a month with us. As always, Urmas had set clear goals and made plans to achieve them at NOVE, but this beautiful journey was interrupted unexpectedly for everyone.
The community of Estonian lawyers became incomparably poorer with Urmas’s passing.
The team of NOVE Law Firm expresses its condolences to Urmas’ family and friends.
