The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth School of Law has earned full accreditation by the American Bar Association (ABA), a major milestone for the Commonwealth’s public law school.

A letter received on December 6 from the ABA stated that UMass Law “has demonstrated that it is in full compliance with each of the Standards.”

The law school was established by unanimous vote of the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education in 2010 after the Southern New England School of Law donated all of its assets, including its 75,000 square foot building and 8.5-acre property, to the university, said school officials. The donation was valued at $23 million.

The school earned provisional ABA accreditation on schedule in 2012. Full accreditation, the final step in the national accreditation process, means that the school has met or exceeded all ABA quality standards, said university officials.

Since its establishment in 2010, the 190-student UMass Law has seen steady improvement in the LSAT law school admission test scores and GPAs of incoming students, and its bar pass rate of graduates to levels similar to other law schools in Massachusetts. UMass Law’s 25th percentile LSAT is already higher than 40 out of the 205 ABA law schools in the country, said officials.

Meanwhile, school officials say UMass Law has established a leadership position in creating legal education opportunities by recruiting one of the most diverse student bodies in the country and holding the line on student charges. UMass Law had the most diverse entering class in New England in 2015 (35.5 percent) and the rate is 33 percent this year, said university officials.

In-state tuition is now $26,466, about half the cost of private law schools. UMass Law graduates average debt load is lower than that of 115 of the 182 ABA law schools that reported debt load, said officials.

UMass Law students – in keeping with UMass Dartmouth’s nationally recognized commitment to civic engagement – have generated more than 87,000 hours of service (valued at more than $4.5 million) for the community through pro bono legal assistance, public interest law fellowships, and other programs, said officials. The school is one of the first in the country to make pro bono and experiential learning service a graduation requirement.

The school’s Public Interest Fellowship Program, which provides a 50 percent scholarship to students who commit to practice public interest law upon graduation, has placed students in dozens of civic, government and non-profit organizations across the region, including:

-- Committee for Public Counsel Services

-- MA Department of Children and Families

-- Fair Employment Project

-- New Bedford, Taunton, and Fall River city halls

-- Buzzards Bay Coalition

-- District Attorney offices in Bristol County, Essex County, Middlesex County

-- Beacon Hospice

-- Children’s Advocacy Center

The school is also confronting the well-documented challenge of large numbers of Massachusetts citizens going to court in civil cases without legal representation. The school established Justice Bridge, a legal practice incubator in Boston and New Bedford, to provide low-cost legal assistance to low-income people. Justice Bridge has processed more than 3,500 cases in its two years of existence. The lessons learned from the incubator will be used to guide the development of a new legal practice business model and the curriculum of UMass Law.

The law school faculty has also been making a significant contribution to legal scholarship:

-- Professor Jeremiah Ho’s proposals related to opioid screening for expectant mothers will be published in the Harvard Journal on Legislation.

-- Professor Hillary Farber has written and presented on state and national regulations related to drones.

-- Professor Margaret Drew has been recognized for her expertise in laws related to domestic violence.

-- Professor Jason Potter Burda's HIV prevention scholarship has appeared in the Journal of the International AIDS Society.

The school has achieved ABA accreditation during a period of declining law school enrollment nationwide but unlike many schools has seen stable enrollments in recent years. With ABA accreditation, the school expects to grow enrollment over the next several years to build a budget surplus.