The board will undertake a "comprehensive risk assessment" into whether the brothers have been rehabilitated, according to Mark Geragos and Cliff Gardner.
The defence lawyers said they were grateful for Newsom's decision.
"The family realises that the governor's action does not mean he will commute the sentences," Geragos and Gardner said in a statement on Wednesday.
"Instead, this initial step reflects the Governor's considered decision to at least obtain the information required to make a fair decision as to whether Erik and Lyle, after 35 years in prison, have done the hard work necessary to have a chance at a life outside prison."
Newsom said he wanted the parole board to finish the risk assessment within 90 days.
Following the assessment, there will be a hearing allowing victims' family members and prosecutors to participate in the process, according to the governor's office.
The state's legal standard for parole is whether an inmate poses an unreasonable risk to public safety. That must be determined before the governor can make a decision on commutation.
The brothers are pursuing multiple avenues to win their freedom: Clemency from Newsom, a resentencing hearing, and a new trial.
Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman says he opposes a new trial for the brothers, but he hasn't made up his mind on whether to support a resentencing bid that could lead to their freedom.
Newsom has said he will not make a clemency decision until Hochman finishes reviewing the case.
The proposed resentencing is still set to be taken up at a March hearing and would make them immediately eligible for parole.
The brothers were found guilty in the murders of their entertainment executive father, Jose, and their mother, Kitty Menendez, and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
They began their latest bid for freedom in recent years after their lawyers said new evidence of their father's sexual abuse emerged, and they have the support of most of their extended family.
Hochman said he has filed an informal response urging the Los Angeles County Superior Court to reject a habeas petition filed by the brothers' lawyers in 2023 that seeks a re-examination of their case that centres in part the allegations that Jose Menendez sexually abused Erik Menendez.
Hochman cast doubt on the evidence of abuse and said it was not pertinent to the case, disputing the claims that killings constituted self-defence.
He also characterised the brothers' own testimony of sexual abuse as untrustworthy because they had told five different explanations for why they committed the murder.
Lyle Menendez, who was then 21, and Erik Menendez, then 18, admitted they killed their parents with a shotgun, but they said they feared their parents were about to kill them to prevent disclosure of their father's long-term molestation of Erik.
Prosecutors said at the time there was no evidence of molestation, and many details in the brothers' story of sexual abuse were not permitted in the trial that led to their conviction in 1996. Prosecutors accused the brothers of killing their parents for money.
The possible resentencing will take into account the brothers' rehabilitation during their time in prison. Hochman has met with the brothers' relatives as he reviews their case, which includes thousands of pages of prison records.
The case gained new traction after Netflix began streaming the true-crime drama Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.
