Amicus Partners

The thing about cats, and I suspect that very few know this, is that they absolutely abhor small talk.

You will never ever come across a cat who, amid a social setting with strangers, break the silence with a “How about this weather” or any of the versions that come to mind when imagining the contents of “How to make friends….”

This will simply never happen.

And this is not because of their personality, which can be easily perceived to be of a disagreeable nature. Instead, this is a reflection of their care and concern about time; their own and everyone else’s as well.

Cats, and my apologies for the language, do not faff around. They prefer the direct route. The one that encapsulates the tiniest possible ratio between energy expended and goal desired.

In other words, cats know what they want. And they want it now.

This insight took years to develop, involving detailed observations of two cats who wrangled into my life half a decade ago. Both monsters possess an inhuman intensity of desire combined with an equally intense aversion to waiting.

They are living, breathing examples of what it means to be in the present.

Which can be utterly infuriating, perhaps none more so than at three in the morning when one may be rudely awoken by scratches on the face, because the number of food kibbles in the feeding bowl is off by one.

Oh, the injustice of it all!

But it can also be fascinating – this fixation with the present, a complete and absolute surrender to a moment that can only exist at a single point in time.

After all, isn’t that what the greatest human minds aspire for?

If you have reached this far, you may be wondering where this is all going.

Bear with me.

Odd as it may seem, I see a lot of similarities between cats and the clients I work with when it comes to LLM applications. The ones which require the least assistance are the ones who know exactly what they want from the LLM in particular, and life in general. The clarity shines through in their career paths, their statements of purpose, their entire approach to the application process.

Much like with cats, I envy this confidence of knowing. Especially in today’s age, where there is no shortage of things that prey on your attention, leaving you almost perpetually distracted.  

And while I may not completely know what I want, I do know that it is time to move on from Amicus Partners. Admissions counselling, and working with international law schools, has been rewarding no doubt, but it is no longer where my interests lie.

Of this, I am quite clear.

Where I am not too clear is what lies next.

In that sense, I am a lot like the other type of clients I get – the ones who might not know what they want, or even why. Very often, they are wanderers who are not completely lost, but just a bit unsure if the path they are currently on is the correct one.

These are the ones who require a little help in discovering their dreams and their desires. Perhaps a gentle prod, or a not so gentle nudge.

These are the ones who are yet to find their inner cat.

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(The Amicus blog shall remain free to read for the foreseeable future. We will be accepting an extremely limited number of document/application reviews from July 31, 2025 onwards)