My understanding is that the need to protect information provided by prosecutors to defense counsel as part of discovery was already being debated between the judge, prosecutors and defense attorneys.

That's entirely possible - and seems reasonable. But doing something inconsistent with what is "already being debated" among the parties is a far, far cry from breaking the criminal law. Or even violating the rules of your local bar. The lawyer isn't going to go to jail for doing something unless it's a crime....even if he's frontrunning an expected judge's order by doing it. He's very likely not going to be debarred, either. I'm not a litigator, so I don't know if there's some informal expectation that if you know what the judge is going to do on a requested order that you shouldn't do it, but I do know it's a really high standard to have your ticket pulled. If there isn't a Rule of Ethics on the matter, he might not even face so much as a reprimand.

Prosecutorial evidence isn't the same as classified information. It's not theirs. They have an obligation to share it with defense counsel, and my understanding is that defense counsel generally has no greater obligation to keep the prosecution's evidence secret than they do their own evidence. Defense counsel has an obligation not to do things that will result in the judge not being able to conduct a trial, so judge's have the power to impose some limits on what they can do and say in the media. But until the judge has done so, and unless there's some precedent or rule that says "thou shalt not," it's hard to see that anything really bad happens to this guy....