  We study the T=0 Kondo physics of a spin-1/2 impurity in a
non-centrosymmetric metal with spin-orbit interaction. Within a simple
variational approach we compute ground state properties of the system for an
{\it arbitrary} form of spin-orbit coupling consistent with the crystal
symmetry. This coupling produces an unscreened impurity magnetic moment and can
lead to a significant change of the Kondo energy. We discuss implications of
this finding both for dilute impurities and for heavy-fermion materials without
inversion symmetry.
