What is the UK equivalent of Georgetown University?

Excuse my ignorance. I am not living in the UK .
I am planning to get a Phd in law, but not sure where to go. Rankings are confusing to me and I didn't know which one to count on. Georgetown is known in the U.S. for being a highly selective, prestigious institution that constantly places high ranks in almost every aspect. It definitely has the"the wow factor". With that being said, it's not Harvard or Yale. What is its equivalent in the UK?

This is very difficult to answer as most of the best places for Law are old established universities. I suppose looking at your criteria Bath, York,. Warwick, Exeter and Lancaster fit your bill but Bath I believe doesn't offer Law.

Excuse my ignorance. I am not living in the UK .
I am planning to get a Phd in law, but not sure where to go. Rankings are confusing to me and I didn't know which one to count on. Georgetown is known in the U.S. for being a highly selective, prestigious institution that constantly places high ranks in almost every aspect. It definitely has the"the wow factor". With that being said, it's not Harvard or Yale. What is its equivalent in the UK?

LSE?

When you say "a PhD in Law", what area specifically are you looking to get it in? There probably isn't really a general equivalent because it doesn't really...make sense for there to be one. A university that might be excellent in one area of legal research and academia may be highly deficient in another. Given the extremely specialised nature of the PhD, generic metrics aren't relevant - those don't tell you if the world leader in research in a given field is working there.

Generally, all universities in the UK are research universities, and law "schools" lecturers in the UK tend to research first, teach second. So, any "highly ranked" law course provider will likely have some research ongoing that is of fairly notable standard and might be worth considering (e.g. Oxbridge, LSE, UCL, Durham). For legal philosophy/jurisprudence Oxford is, as I understand, the world leader - they're also considered one of the, if not the, strongest law departments in the country as far as undergrad studies go (and have a very prestigious masters course, the BCL). As I understand Cambridge has a major international law research centre, and a lot of land/property law stuff (in the department of land economy).

Durham or UCL are probably the "next step down" for undergraduate law I guess from Oxbridge/LSE, but that's as above not really relevant to the quality of a PhD programme in a particular area of research. If you wanted to research e.g. Islamic law then SOAS would probably be a strong option for example, despite being considered rather average by undergrad generic metrics.

Thank you.
How do you see these universities compared to UCL, Manchester, Edinburgh, Leeds?

I am interested in Intellectual Property law and International Business law.

Edinburgh, Manchester, Oxford for Intellectual Property Law.
Kings College London (KCL), Manchester for International Business Law.
General all round 'good' UK Law Schools in no particular order - LSE, KCL, UCL, Durham, Bristol, Manchester, Edinburgh.

Employers are not impressed by PhDs. They are more impressed by a very good LLB or LLM - and relevant work experience.

Not really helpful to give these "insights". OP could very well turn down City or QMUL or Southampton for "int'l business law" just because they are not in your arbitrary categories -- nor is it clear if your research is in these areas, so you'd even be expected to know the leading schools.

If the OP doesn't exercise due diligence and relies solely on any of the advice given on a random website then frankly they deserve everything they get. And, just for the record, I'm an academic at a leading UK University.

Do you research international business law?

The Universities I have mentioned offer LLM in those fields, therefore they will have that staff expertise.

The only employers who will care about an LLM or PhD in law will be academic institutions.