Legal partners
REMEMBER the heady days of as long ago as, say, last year, when accountants and lawyers were going to merge into huge one-stop shops for seamless consulting, legal and business advice? That, of course, was pre-Enron.
Post-Enron, the most acquisitive of the big consulting groups, Andersen, has few friends left, and fewer lawyers on the payroll. In Spain, Garrigues Andersen has hastily dropped the second half of its name, reverting to its original, simple title of Garrigues. And in Norway, Andersen Legal has imploded. Six partners have still not learnt that it's the system that is wrong. They have moved with the remnants of Andersen to join Ernst & Young. Two of them, Christine Rodsaether and Christian Ditlev-Simonsen, have moved to Vogt & Wiig AS, followed by the majority of the lawyers and associates previously with Andersen Legal.
Vogt & Wiig is now a powerful force in Norway's maritime and business law scene, with 23 partners and 65 lawyers in its offices in Oslo, Bergen and Trondheim. The firm works closely with Ernst & Young, but retains its independence, which is probably the way clients prefer it.