Priit Pikamäe was elected Director of the University of Tartu School of Law

On 14 October, the council of the School of Law of the University of Tartu elected Priit Pikamäe, Advocate-General of the European Court of Justice and former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Estonia, as Director of the School of Law for the period 2025–2027. There was one candidate, and all 23 council members present voted for Priit Pikamäe.

The newly elected director said that the University of Tartu School of Law has a special mission to ensure the raising of a new generation of Estonian lawyers. “Highly qualified lawyers are required both for the functioning of the state and to protect individuals’ rights in court proceedings, so the importance of educating them cannot be overestimated,” said Pikamäe.

In his opinion, the unique role of the University of Tartu School of Law is particularly obvious now that the judiciary system and the prosecutor’s office are undergoing a significant generational change. “It is in the interest of all of us that young lawyers with top qualifications take over the tasks of those retired,” he explained. 

Pikamäe is an outstanding Estonian lawyer with profound knowledge of the international and Estonian legal systems. He graduated from the University of Tartu School of Law with a bachelor’s degree in 1997, with a master’s degree in 2001, and defended his doctoral thesis in 2006. He studied in France at the University of Poitiers and Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University. Pikamäe’s main research interests are constitutional law, European Union law and criminal law.

Before starting work at the European Court of Justice, Pikamäe was a judge at all court levels and the President of the Supreme Court of Estonia from 2013 to 2019. He has been actively involved in developing Estonia’s constitutional legal order. Pikamäe’s mandate as Advocate-General at the European Court of Justice expired at the beginning of October this year, allowing him to return to Estonia.

As Director of the School of Law at the University of Tartu, Pikamäe intends to promote legal education and research. He believes that the challenges facing the School of Law are the same as the ones facing the entire education system. “First and foremost, it is the unattractiveness of the teaching profession for young lawyers that makes the generational change difficult for the School of Law. However, as the growth in the number of young teaching staff is a crucial factor for the sustainability of our modern legal education, I consider focusing on this to be the most important task of my term of office,” said Pikamäe.

Priit Pikamäe’s term of office as Director of the University of Tartu School of Law will start on 1 January 2025.

Priit Pikamäe CV in Estonian Research Information System (ETIS)