Ray, the person who hands the document to the Captain to sign is actually the gate agent, not the dispatcher. The dispatcher is responsible for multiple flights at once and is the point of contact for the pilots should anything go wrong at any point during the flight. I know this because aside from the fact that I'm a certified flight dispatcher myself, I had the chance to observe what it is a dispatcher does, as somebody else in my flight dispatch class is also a flight dispatcher. We were nowhere near the airplane, as the operations center is just north of the airport.
