2 Prominent Lawyers Hired for Simpson Children : Investigation: Edi M.O. Faal and Carl Jones have agreed to represent the murder suspect’s two adult offspring. Police and prosecutors are seeking to interview them.

Two respected Southern California attorneys are signing up to play a role in the O.J. Simpson murder case, though they will not join his already crowded defense team, sources close to the case said Friday.

Edi M.O. Faal and Carl Jones have agreed to represent Simpson’s two adult children, Arnelle and Jason Simpson, the sources said. Police and prosecutors are seeking to interview the two children, and Simpson’s attorneys want them to have legal representation before they grant those interviews.

If the children decline to be interviewed voluntarily, authorities have hinted that they might serve them with subpoenas and force them to testify before a grand jury, sources said.

Jones is a Pasadena attorney and founder of a highly acclaimed private organization dedicated to providing indigent defendants quality legal representation at a lower cost to taxpayers. He declined to comment on his involvement in the Simpson case Friday. But sources in the defense camp said he has been asked to represent Jason Simpson, O.J. Simpson’s oldest son.

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Faal, who attracted national attention last year with his much-acclaimed defense of Damian Monroe Williams, signed on Thursday night to represent Arnelle Simpson.

“She is a witness in this case,” Faal said Friday. “She needs someone to guide her through that process.”

Neither Faal nor Jones will be part of the defense team itself, which includes at least nine attorneys, including several nationally known lawyers. Lead attorney Robert L. Shapiro has said that he has completed his search for legal talent to join that team.

Arnelle and Jason Simpson had been represented by Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., but Cochran joined the defense team last month, creating a possible conflict if he continued to represent the children, particularly if they are called as witnesses in their father’s trial.

Arnelle Simpson’s statements could be of particular interest to authorities, as she was at her father’s home on the night of the murders and spoke to the police officers who came onto the property without a warrant the next morning.

Faal declined to speculate on what authorities want to discuss with Arnelle Simpson, but stressed that nothing in her account will help prosecutors seeking to win a conviction against her father.

“Obviously not,” Faal said. “Johnnie Cochran just wanted to be careful, to be sure that there was no possible conflict, so he asked me to consider representing Arnelle.”

During last month’s preliminary hearing, Arnelle Simpson was called to the witness stand by her father’s attorneys and asked about her conversations with police officers on the morning after the killings. In her testimony, she said she had never given police permission to seize anything from the premises and added that no officer had indicated to her any concern about her safety or that of other residents at Simpson’s estate.

That testimony was offered to show that police did not jump the fence and enter Simpson’s estate out of concern for people inside, as the detectives stated in their testimony. Although the officers’ decision to enter the property without a warrant was approved by Municipal Judge Kathleen Kennedy-Powell, Simpson’s attorneys are expected to raise the issue again as part of their renewed attempt to have the search declared invalid.

In other developments Friday:

* There was a flurry of court activity--all of it under seal. Simpson’s defense lawyers filed two sealed motions. Court officials said one was a response to an earlier motion by the prosecution. The other defense motion was an ex parte application--a request to the judge for some action. For his part, Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito issued an order under seal.

* Law enforcement sources said police have a receipt from a Burbank costume shop where Simpson allegedly purchased a wig and mustache about a month before the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman. The sources said police have not established whether those items have any significance to the case.

Times staff writer Henry Weinstein contributed to this report.