The litre and the symbol lower-case l were adopted by the International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM) as early as in 1879. It is a non-SI unit that is accepted for use with the 'International System of Units' (SI). The capital L was adopted as alternative symbol at the 16th General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) one century later (1979), to avoid risk of confusion among letter l (el) and numeral 1 (one). Hence, both ml and mL have been legitimated for combined use with SI units. However, both the power of written tradition and advances in printing technology seem to have favoured the use of ml compared with mL.
Cf. Bureau International des Poids et Mesures / International Committee for Weights and Measures, "The International System of Units (SI)", 8th ed. (English text), Organisation Intergouvernementale de la Convention du Mètre, 2006, p. 124 (note f); available at: http://www.bipm.org/utils/common/pdf/si_brochure_8_en.pdf