My person was really good at this sort of thing - I have been trying to remember some of the things she did to help both her grad students and her colleagues on this sort of matter. If I remember anything useful, I will let you know.
My law school are a little more direct and blunt than other academic departments like the Humanities. My person used to interrupt me when we were out with her colleagues and tell them "Stopdog is a lawyer and they're like that" and when we were out with mine - she was just as different as I was with hers - mostly because it would take her forever to get to the actual point and it was often couched so (to us) non-bluntly that people missed it.