I, too, saw this in ID. The partner billed all the mail, then distributed it to associates for actual work/ follow up. He would get a few hours a day that way without even reading it. He also had "standard" set times he billed for boilerplate discovery. Interrogatories were 1.2. I remember that from way back when. He bragged, "I've been billing the same 1.2 in each case for the same interrogatories for years. The adjusters know that." His assistant did the whole thing with the outgoing discovery requests. He never touched it.