She earned her Juris Doctorate from Loyola University School of Law and is a member of the American Bar Association, Association of Trial Lawyers of America, Connecticut Bar Association and Connecticut Trial Lawyers Association. She is also the 1998-1999 Chair of the Connecticut Bar Association's Victim's Rights Committee, an advisory board member of the International Council on Cultism and Ritual Trauma, and an advisory board member of the International Association of Forensic Hypnosis. Attorney McGonigle was the plaintiff's lawyer in the landmark case of Borawick vs Shay, which set a legal precedent in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit adopting the totality of the circumstances test of admissibility for post-hypnotic testimony