A law firm's failure to timely disclose to the court that it had inadvertently received an e-mail containing a confidential client communication by opposing counsel "certainly violates the spirit, if not the letter," of the New York City Bar's ethics committee's opinion on handling accidentally received e-mail, a Manhattan judge says.

Instead, Kelley Drye & Warren ignored a request from Lewis Paper of Dickstein Shapiro, who accidentally sent the e-mail, to disregard it, which forced Dickstein Shapiro to seek a protective order, says acting Supreme Court Justice Bernard Fried. He called Kelley Drye's handling of the e-mail in a corporate breach-of-contract case "unacceptable" and refused the firm permission to use the e-mail in discovery, reports the New York Law Journal. Its article is reprinted in New York Lawyer (reg. req.).

Kelley Drye's Eugene D'Ablemont received the e-mail. He referred the legal publication's request for comment to partner William Heck, who didn't immediately respond.

D'Ablemont, 79, has been in the news lately as a result of the age discrimination claim he pursued against the firm. It recently announced changes in the way the equity status of older partners will be handled.