UMass Dartmouth has a long history, dating back to 1895. The most recent chapter of that history took place on February 2, 2010, when the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education voted to approve the university’s authority to grant the degree of Juris Doctor, and the University of Massachusetts School of Law - Dartmouth was established.

UMass Law was made possible by a $23 million donation of assets—a facility, land, library, technology, and cash— from the Southern New England School of Law.

Southern New England School of Law was established in 1981 with a volunteer faculty, a handful of part-time students, no home, no cash, not even a name—nothing but the excitement of creating an environment for teaching and learning the law. It grew from a literal store-front operation, offering a weekend program of study in Fall River, to a dual-division law school located in its own state-of-the-art facility in North Dartmouth. At the time of the donation, SNESL had 1,200 alumni, 200 students, 13 full-time faculty members, and two dozen adjunct faculty.

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