I have a case wherein I have multiple sites - HR, compliance, GL etc. Each one of them shares some common data like Legal Entity, Location, SBU, Business Unit etc. I wanted these lists to be available to all the sites that I create. Is there any way to achieve the same.

If your lists and documents are contained in one site, then you can create site level lookup columns that can be used by the other lists. However, if any of your sites are in other sub-sites or site collections, then this is not possible. You could also define Site choice columns that can be used across sites within a site collection. This link below talks about possibly defining a lookup column from another site: http://splittingshares.wordpress.com/2008/04/25/create-a-drop-down-list-with-a-lookup-to-another-site/ certdev.com

As I understand you want to share content from the lists. It is easy you can use out of box Page Viewer Web Part. Add the Web Part on your sub sites where you want to see content from the shared list and point Web Part Link property to shared list. Oleg

Here's another way that clones a Data View Web Part: http://techtrainingnotes.blogspot.com/2010/02/sharepoint-how-to-move-data-view-web.html And another to export and reuse a regular library / list web part: http://techtrainingnotes.blogspot.com/2009/03/sharepoint-one-library-multiple-sites.html If you use the Page Viewer Web Part approach then you will get the entire SharePoint page, navigation and all, in the web part. Here's a way to get just the list/library: http://techtrainingnotes.blogspot.com/2009/05/sharepoint-list-whole-list-nothing-but.htmlMike Smith TechTrainingNotes.blogspot.com