DARTMOUTH – The Southern New England School of Law and the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth have renewed efforts to merge, which would create the Bay State’s first public law school, officials said Wednesday.

In an Oct. 5 letter, the 235-student private law school’s trustees offered to donate its roughly $22.6 million worth of cash and real estate, including its North Dartmouth campus, to the state university, the Boston Business Journal reported.

The new school would become part of UMass and Southern New England School of Law would no longer exist, the law school’s dean, Robert V. Ward Jr., told the newspaper.

Ward also emphasized that the school had not made the effort because of financial difficulties. “We’re coming off a very good year,” he told the BBJ. “In a time when layoffs and everything were going on, at the end of the fiscal year, we were able to put a little extra in the paychecks of our employees.”

Southern New England School of Law was founded in 1981. It received accreditation from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges in 1995. The American Bar Association denied the school’s accreditation application in 1997 and again in 1999.

This is not the first time in recent years an attempt has been made to merge the two institutions. In December 2004, the University of Massachusetts Board of Trustees approved a plan to take over the law school.

The proposal was rejected by the Mass. Board of Higher Education the following spring in the face of fierce opposition from some of the state’s private law schools and concerns about the school’s struggle to win accreditation.

Massachusetts has nine private law schools but no public one, unlike many other states. Rhode Island’s only law school, Roger Williams University School of Law, is also private.

“Law is a missing piece of the UMass curriculum,” Jean MacCormack, chancellor of UMass Dartmouth, told The Boston Globe. “This would fill in that gap and provide an affordable public law school option for students.” She said UMass hopes to submit a formal plan to the higher education board by the end of the year.

Tuition and fees at Southern New England School of Law are $22,175 for full-time students this year, according to its Web site. UMass Dartmouth already provides some services to the law school’s students.

Additional information is available at snesl.edu.