I agree that Duke is the logical target for a lawsuit. Both the AV and the students would seem to have claims against Duke if the evidence ends up pointing their way. Right now, it seems to me that the Lax guys have been seriously slandered and deprived of their contractual rights to a good education. Duke would rather settle than be forced to accept students they don't want and allow them to play an NCAA sport in a Duke jersey.
I don't get the sue Durham idea so much. Nifong works for the state, not the city doesn't he?
The Durham police department probably hasn't been perfect, but the biggest problems seem to me to be decisions about prosecution, not investigation.
Finally, I have to say that the idea that the AV changed her story doesn't impress me. Pretty much every victim of a violent crime has a story that is hard to follow. The first investigator is often hard put to come up with sound facts on a sound timeline. 12 or 24 hours, even a couple of days if the victim is sufficiently traumatized, is not an unusual time for sorting out inconsistencies and getting to a coherent story.
The upshot of this is that early inconsistencies are not going to hurt the credibility of the AV. Her story is trashed by the investigative facts, not so much by her apparent early-hour wavering.