Liability suits add up on accountants. (Focus: Personal Investments & Accounting)

A flood of litigation

Accounting, a profession once perceived as populated with quiet, number-crunching types, now finds itself embroiled in a battle for its life.

Liability suits against accounting firms are proliferating and judgments against accounting firms have reached all-time highs.

All accounting firms are vulnerable, even the most powerful.

The largest judgment so far came in a case against Coopers & Lybrand. The accounting firm was accused by a defunct Colorado disk-drive maker, Miniscribe, of conducting faulty audits.

In February, a jury ordered the firm to pay damages of $200 million, The Wall Street Journal reported. The case was appealed and settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.

Coopers & Lybrand also is under fire for its role as auditor for media tycoon Robert Maxwell and for its involvement as auditors for Phar-Mor Inc., a discount drug chain that recently declared bankruptcy.

But Coopers & Lybrand is not the only accounting firm to be hit with big legal problems:

* Arthur Andersen …