I got the job as a Consultant in a firm that has 3 other programmers. My job is to rewrite all the old system in Java, Spring etc but the staff programmers only know perl and the manager does not know any programming.

I am trying to get them to understand that I have 6 projects to rewrite here but no one has design docs or spec. the staff programmers never had to write any documents. Plus I cant get the manager to understand the new java tech stuff.. he keeps asking some of the staff for views on things but the staff don't know it or understand it.

Where do I go from here to make the manager understand that the staff programmers or someone has to write a design document so I know what to build. or if I have to write the documents how do I get the information?