The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth law program is the Commonwealth’s only public law program, and the only law program of any kind in southeastern Massachusetts.  

The program is designed to prepare students to meet all bar requirements, practice law in various settings, and inspire highly qualified students to consider meaningful public service law careers in underrepresented areas of the state.  

The program is especially committed to increasing the diversity of those who practice law in the Commonwealth. The program is rigorous and challenging, encouraging students to become professionally engaged in their community through clinics and internships while they study.  

The program distinguishes itself as well by creating an intellectual climate that supports and encourages public policy issues to be debated and explored in classrooms, public forums, and in distinguished guest lectures. This builds on the university’s national recognition by the Carnegie Foundation as a “civic engagement university” and placement on the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll.

The law program connects the scholarship, professional activities, and grant activity of the law program faculty and students to public needs. Its clinical programs, while allowing students to practice all necessary “lawyering” skills, provide a training context rooted in fundamental social justice issues and in understanding of the Gideon mandates for broader citizen access to counsel.