ABOUT KINDRID
A search firm that treats both sides of an engagement with the same care.
Back to HomeOUR STORY
How Kindrid came to exist
Kindrid was founded in Hong Kong by people who had spent time on both sides of hiring conversations in the legal sector — as candidates, as hiring managers, and as the person coordinating a search that wasn't working well. What those experiences shared was a frustration with how much of the process was rushed, opaque, or poorly matched to the actual needs of the role.
The firm's name refers to kindred — shared interest, common ground — because that is what a search, at its best, should produce. Not a placement that holds for six months, but a working relationship between a person and an organization that makes sense for both over time.
We opened in Central, Hong Kong, with a deliberate decision to remain small, stay focused on the legal sector, and work only on retained terms. Those constraints are not incidental — they define what kind of work we can do well.
OUR MISSION
What we are trying to do
Kindrid exists to run search work properly — which means taking the brief seriously, being honest with clients about what the market looks like, handling candidates with transparency, and producing written outputs that document the thinking behind each decision.
We measure our work by whether the hire holds and whether the search process itself was one that both sides would consider fair. That second measure is harder to track but matters to how we conduct each engagement.
"The market for legal talent in Hong Kong is not large. Reputations — of organizations and of firms like ours — travel quickly. That keeps us honest."
THE TEAM
People behind the work
Sophie Lau
Principal, Search
Sophie leads retained search engagements. Her background includes in-house legal hiring at two international financial institutions in Hong Kong, which shapes how she briefs and assesses roles.
Marcus Chan
Associate, Search & Advisory
Marcus works across search engagements and the firm's advisory services — process reviews and candidate experience work. He brings prior experience from a regional law firm's talent function.
Ritu Nair
Research & Market Mapping
Ritu leads the research function — market mapping, candidate landscape analysis, and the documentation that underpins each search report. Her work makes the written outputs substantive rather than generic.
HOW WE OPERATE
Operational standards we hold ourselves to
Retained engagements only
We do not take contingent briefs. Retained terms mean we are aligned with completing the search well — not with being first to submit a name.
Candidate data protection
Candidate information is held securely, used only for the engagement it was provided for, and not shared without explicit permission. We follow Hong Kong's Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance in full.
Written at every stage
Each engagement produces written outputs — scope documents, market maps, assessment notes — rather than verbal-only updates. The client's record of the search is complete and transferable.
Off-limits discipline
We do not approach people from organizations we are actively serving. Off-limits commitments are taken seriously and maintained for a defined period after each engagement closes.
Honest market feedback
If the brief is unrealistic or the market thinner than expected, we say so early. We do not hold that information to manage optics — it is more useful to clients when surfaced promptly.
Legal sector focus
We work only within the legal sector. This keeps our market knowledge current and our candidate relationships relevant — we do not spread across sectors where we cannot add real context.
OUR POSITION
Search work in the Hong Kong legal market
The in-house legal function has changed considerably over the past decade in Hong Kong. Organizations that once relied on outside counsel for the majority of their legal work have built substantial internal teams — teams that now require their own senior leadership, operational infrastructure, and specialist knowledge functions. Hiring for those roles calls for a different kind of search than placing fee-earners into a law firm.
Kindrid focuses on that space. We work with general counsels building out their teams, with HR directors at organizations that do not have dedicated legal hiring capability, and with in-house teams that want to review whether their hiring process is working as well as it should. Our advisory services — process reviews and candidate experience work — exist because a search sometimes reveals problems that run deeper than a single open role.
We are based in Central and work across the Hong Kong legal market, including international firms with significant in-house practices in the city. We do not operate across South-East Asia as a whole — the precision we bring to Hong Kong depends on the depth of our local knowledge, and we prefer to keep that depth rather than trade it for scale.
Have a role or a process question?
A conversation does not commit either side. We are happy to talk through whether what we do fits what you need before any engagement is discussed.