We present a volume-limited , spectroscopically-verified sample of M7 - L5 ultracool dwarfs within 25 pc . The sample contains 410 sources , of which 93 \% have trigonometric distance measurements ( 80 \% from Gaia DR2 ) , and 81 \% have low-resolution ( R \sim 120 ) , near-infrared ( NIR ) spectroscopy . We also present an additional list of 60 sources which may be M7 - L5 dwarfs within 25 pc when distance or spectral type uncertainties are taken into account . The spectra provide NIR spectral and gravity classifications , and we use these to identify young sources , red and blue J - K _ { S } color outliers , and spectral binaries . We measure very low gravity and intermediate gravity fractions of 2.1 ^ { +0.9 } _ { -0.8 } \% and 7.8 ^ { +1.7 } _ { -1.5 } \% , respectively ; fractions of red and blue color outliers of 1.4 ^ { +0.6 } _ { -0.5 } % and 3.6 ^ { +1.0 } _ { -0.9 } % , respectively ; and a spectral binary fraction of 1.6 ^ { +0.5 } _ { -0.5 } \% . We present an updated luminosity function for M7 - L5 dwarfs continuous across the hydrogen burning limit that agrees with previous studies . We estimate our completeness to range between 69 - 80 \% when compared to an isotropic model . However , we find that the literature late-M sample is severely incomplete compared to L dwarfs , with completeness of 62 ^ { +8 } _ { -7 } \% and 83 ^ { +10 } _ { -9 } \% , respectively . This incompleteness can be addressed with astrometric-based searches of ultracool dwarfs with Gaia to identify objects previously missed by color- and magnitude-limited surveys .