The former partners are worried that the plans of Andersen partners in the U.S. and elsewhere to defect to rival firms will decimate the pool of money available to pay pension and other benefits to those who have retired from Andersen.

"We cannot fathom why the current leaders in the U.S and other countries think they can replace their own income and pensions by joining successor firms while they walk away from paying our retirement pay and medical benefits," said Dave Buchholz, one of the plaintiffs in the case and a former head of Andersen's global tax practice. According to the former partners' estimates, Andersen owes them as much as $800 million in benefits.

Andersen itself and groups of its partners have negotiated an array of deals with other firms. These include an impending deal between rival Deloitte & Touche to hire away hundreds of Andersen tax partners and employees; a deal involving Andersen's business risk consulting practice; and a deal with rival KPMG to hire away tax and audit partners in at least eight Andersen offices.

"We have not broken any promises to our retired partners," said Patrick Dorton, a spokesman for Andersen. "We have had regular communications with them and we are committed to treating partners and their families as fairly as possible. Any transactions would provide fair value to the firm."

At an emergency hearing set for Wednesday in the Northern Illinois District Court of Judge Robert Gettlemen, retired partners plan to ask for a restraining order against Andersen, said Tom Mulroy, attorney for the group.

The partners will argue that Andersen is failing to meet its obligations to retired partners and failing to ensure that firms buying Andersen assets take their "fair share of the liability to retired partners."

The group wants the judge to force Andersen to go to arbitration and use benefits laws usually employed by individuals to argue that the status of the retired partners' claims should be upgraded from unsecured to preferred creditors.

"We feel they have delayed unreasonably," said former chief executive Duane Kullberg, who said he had spoken several times to Larry Gorrell, who recently became head of Andersen's U.S. operations. "We want the court to stop any transactions and have them set aside the retirement benefits."

Under a system started in the early 1980s, Andersen partners pay a portion of their income into a retirement fund that the firm typically uses to help fund its operations. The fund was set up to establish a reservoir of cash to fund pension liabilities not just for those who would retire but also partners who had already left the firm.

Regardless of the sum partners earn while working at Andersen or pay into the fund, they withdraw just $3,500 per month in basic retirement pay. But partners who opt or are asked to take early retirement also get a special bonus lump sum payment, typically equal to one year's salary.

Several of the former partners now suing Andersen opted to receive their lump sum payment over a ten-year period. Since the troubles came to light, many have asked for the cash payments owed to them to be accelerated, a request turned down by Andersen in almost all cases.

"The longer we wait the higher the risk," said Kullberg, on Monday, the same day that R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. became the latest major local company to drop Andersen as its auditor.

Since Andersen became a central player in the Enron scandal at the end of last year, the firm's earnings have plummeted. Forbes Magazine estimates Andersen has lost more than $700 million of its $4 billion a year in annual revenue since Jan. 1.

The move by the retired partners could throw a wrench into Andersen's plans to sell off its units but is unlikely to stall the proposals by individual partners to leave, said John Coffee Jr., a securities law professor at Columbia University.

"I think they might try to slow down a total sale of an ongoing business or unit," said Coffee. "Those lawsuits on behalf of the pensioners might be able to examine a sale of assets to make sure they aren't really a gift to someone else but I don't think they could prevent individual partners from leaving."

Coffee said non-compete clauses in partners' agreements with Andersen would only prohibit partners from moving on to rivals for a limited period. "If worse came to the worst, there are people who could take a year off and then go somewhere else because covenants not to compete are only enforceable for a year at most," he said.

The former partners initially sought a temporary restraining order against Andersen in March but delayed the move after a request to do so from Andersen's senior management, which said the petition could scupper negotiations with the Justice Department, civil plaintiffs and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Hopes of a plea agreement with the Justice Department over its criminal obstruction of justice charge have since faded, as have potential deals with investors and employees and the SEC.

A trial on the obstruction of justice charge, which relates to the shredding of tons of Enron related documents by Andersen employees, is scheduled to start on Monday.

Andersen also faces renewed legal pressure on other fronts. The distressed firm went to court Monday to counter charges that it could have helped prevent the largest nonprofit bankruptcy in U.S. history.

Jury selection began Monday morning in the case focusing on Andersen's alleged role contributing to the bankruptcy of the Baptist Foundation of Arizona.

About 13,000 mostly elderly investors lost $570 million when the foundation filed for bankruptcy in 1999. Andersen was the foundation's auditor. Andersen had reached a $217 million settlement in March with the foundation's investors. But the settlement fell through four weeks later when Andersen said its insurance carrier was unable to pay.