It has been a long time in the making, but DLA Piper's recent approval of a swathe of pay reforms will finally bring the divided remuneration structures of the international and US partnerships more in line.

More pressingly for the those in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific, the changes – which form part of a suite of reforms pushed through by global co-CEO Simon Levine in the year since he succeeded Sir Nigel Knowles – mark the end of a system partners have branded 'mistrusted' and 'opaque'.

Having made a manifesto promise to reform remuneration, a new points-based pay system proposed by Levine has recently been approved by a vote of the international partnership.  The new model is based upon partners being allocated points for hitting a number of performance criteria, with the value of a point being decided on a monthly basis. The US partnership already uses a points-based system to reward its partners.