Sorainen

Corporate Advisory, Employment law, Ukraine

Counsel

As a counsel with the firm’s Corporate and M&A practice, Pirkko-Liis Harkmaa focus mainly on employment law matters. She is dedicated to contributing to the success of clients by helping them to set up and operate their businesses in a legally compliant way. Pirkko-Liis is passionate about happy workplaces and the future of work. She truly believes that most of the problems in modern employment relations can easily be prevented by open communication and transparency.

Broader view. Before joining Sorainen, Pirkko-Liis worked in a TOP 3 pan-Baltic law firm for 20 years, out of which during the last 10 years she headed various practice groups and teams in her fields of expertise. Pirkko-Liis has advised both local and international clients from diverse industries in day to day matters as well as in more extensive reorganization projects and cross-border transactions. She has been focused on corporate, employment, regulatory and commercial law issues (eg, data protection, life sciences, telecoms and media, e-commerce, marketing and consumer relations, and product safety). This enables to her to have a bigger picture in mind when advising clients and helps to keep in mind that each matter has various aspects to consider, often requiring the timely involvement of other team members.

Employment expert. Although Pirkko-Liis has spent her career working mostly as a generalist lawyer on the advisory side, her “first love” has always been employment law and the “human touch” involved in it. Since 2010 Pirkko-Liis has been individually continuously ranked by Chambers Europe as a Band 1 employment law practitioner in Estonia. To better understand clients’ concerns she recently attended the Estonian Business School for a certificate course in “Development Programme for HR Managers,” which helped foster a good understanding of the issues involved in matching modern HR and talent management strategies with the rather strict employment regulations.

Active member of the Estonian Bar Association and other professional associations. The status and future of the attorney’s profession are very close to Pirkko-Liis' heart, which is why she has been a member of the Estonian Bar Association’s ethics and methodology committee since 2009 and a member of its employment law committee since 2020. Pirkko-Liis is also active in the European Employment Lawyers Association, where she has been a member and board member since 2008.

Helping others unlock their potential. In addition to helping clientsI Pirkko-Liis likes to dedicate time to helping future lawyers in their studies and career progression. Thus from time to time she gets herself involved in conducting labour law seminars and supervising student papers at the law school of the University of Tartu. With an interest in psychology and people management, she loves to work with people, as well as to figure out what motivates and affects them in their professional lives and at workplaces. So Pirkko-Liis is happy to pass on her experience and give guidance to younger colleagues.

Estonian, English, Finnish, Russian, French

Estonian Bar Association European Employment Lawyers’ Association Ethics and Methodology Committee of the Estonian Bar Association Employment Law Committee of the Estonian Bar Association

University of Georgia, USA (LLM) University of Tartu, Estonia (BA in Law / officially equivalent to MA)