Contact Information
Judge Donohue's Judicial Assistant: 
Phone: 541-243-7805
Email:
BentonMJDScheduling@ojd.state.or.us
NOTE: No document can be "filed" officially with the court by emailing or faxing it to a judge or member of a judge's staff.
Avoid Ex Parte Contact
Judges cannot receive communication from lawyers and self-represented litigants unless that communication is simultaneously provided to all other litigants or their lawyers.
Emailing Judge Donohue Directly
Please do not send emails to Judge Donohue directly. Emails to the judge should be sent to his judicial assistant at
BentonMJDScheduling@ojd.state.or.us. Any email sent must clearly show that copies were simultaneously sent to all other litigants or their lawyers or it cannot be read by Judge Donohue.
Faxes Sent to Judge Donohue
You must first contact Judge Donohue’s judicial assistant before sending a fax transmission. Judge Donohue and his judicial assistant do not have a stand-alone fax machine in their office so faxes sent without first contacting the judicial assistant may not be delivered to Judge Donohue. There is a 10 page limit to the length of documents that can be sent by fax.
Important Documents
Judge Donohue’s Biography
Judge Matthew J. Donohue was appointed to serve as a Circuit Court Judge in March 2013 by then-Governor John Kitzhaber and was subsequently elected to retain that position in November 2014. He was re-elected in 2020. His current term expires on January 4, 2027. In January 2019, Judge Donohue took over as the Drug Treatment Court judge. He currently serves as Presiding Judge over the 21st Judicial District.
Judge Donohue grew up in New Hampshire and New Jersey, moved to Oregon in 1994 and has been a long time Corvallis resident. Judge Donohue graduated from Oregon State University in 1999 with a Bachelor of Science in Natural Resource Management. In 2002, he received his law degree from the University of Oregon School of Law.
Upon graduation from law school in 2002, he served as a law clerk to Justice Rives Kistler on both the Oregon Court of Appeals and the Oregon Supreme Court. In 2004 he joined the Trial Division of the Oregon Department of Justice, where his practice focused on defense of state agencies in federal and state courts, condemnation proceedings, and administrative contested cases.
Judge Donohue is a member of the Oregon State Bar and the Linn-Benton Bar Association. Prior to his appointment to the Benton County Circuit Court, he served eight years on the Corvallis 509J School Board.