Ein anschließendes Studium der Rechtswissenschaften an der University of California, Berkeley schloss sie 1981 mit dem Juris Doctor ab. ###>Donoghue graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz, with honors degrees in Russian Studies and in Biology, in 1978, and the Boalt Hall School of Law, of the University of California, Berkeley, with her Juris Doctor, in 1981.